Four Winds
by Laura Picken
Summary: On a dark and stormy night, a poker night will change the lives of the Castle gang forever. Established Caskett romance. Some Esposito/Lanie. Mostly it's just #35 on Castle's bucket list. :-D
1. Chapter 1

Four Winds  
A Castle Fantasy AU  
by Laura Picken

Welcome! It's been a little over a year since I've originally posted this story, and I've been thrilled and humbled by the reaction to this story and the series it inspired. So I wanted to re-write the introduction to reflect that. This is an AU. A *real* alternate universe to the show. The character base might now be reflected as 'timeless' Castle, branching off somewhere after the beginning of S5. Castle and Beckett are a firmly established couple, Beckett's still an NYPD detective and Ryan is, well, awesome. "Watershed" never happened in this timeline _and never will. _Other than that, I've tried to keep the general setting of the story to feel like it's in the universe of the show. Mostly.

The only other hint I'm going to give is that this is #35 on Castle's bucket list.

DISCLAIMER: Castle, Beckett, et al. are property of Andrew W. Marlowe and ABC. The legends described herein are inventions of my own twisted imagination and should not be taken to reflect the traditions of any particular ethnic group. All non-English language phrases are courtesy of Google Translate, so please forgive me if I get anything unintentionally wrong.

Sit back, relax, and let the adventure begin!

* * *

A deep rumble of thunder shook the windows of the loft. It did not, however, shake the concentration of the five people on the indoor side of the glass as they sat around Richard Castle's beloved poker table.

Kevin Ryan wished he had more to concentrate on, but he knew that his hand was never going to beat anybody. Frustrated, he threw his cards on the table and declared, "I'm out."

Javier Esposito looked at his hand, then scanned the table, carefully debating whether or not any of his friends had anything. Deciding that his hand was too tempting to pass up, he tossed a couple of chips into the pot at the center of the table. "Call."

Dr. Lanie Parrish was staring at her cards as if they held the meaning of life. Either that, or Lanie was so distracted that she wasn't paying attention to the game at all. Kate Beckett noticed her best friend's distraction, but didn't push, choosing instead to simply nudge her friend to play. Snapping out of her thoughts with a start, Lanie threw a matching combination of chips into the pot. "Call."

Beckett, for her part, was really only paying attention to one person out of all the players at the table. She stared at her boyfriend, Rick Castle, determined to finally isolate the man's poker tell out of his pantheon of crazy expressions. Kate knew her hand was unlikely to amount to anything, but hell would freeze over twice before she gave up on her mission. "Raise $5."

Castle grinned wickedly. He knew that Beckett was becoming obsessed with picking up on his tells. Which only made him more determined to find crazy ways to distract her. He laughed wickedly, like she was about to fall into his intensely clever, well-designed trap. "I'll see your $5, my dear detective, and raise you $15."

Esposito picked up on what was going on and he was certain of one thing: he wanted absolutely no part of it, no matter how good his hand might have been. He tossed his cards on the table. "I'm out."

Lanie watched Esposito fold his cards, then noticed the looks on Castle and Beckett's faces and quickly put two and two together. _It'll be much more fun to watch them fight it out from the sidelines, anyway, _she thought. "I fold."

Beckett still couldn't tell whether Castle had a good hand or was bluffing her. All she knew was that she was bound and determined to find out - even if it cost her a few bucks to do it. She tossed the correct grouping of chips into the pot. "Call. Deal the cards, Castle."

Castle turned one card face up on the table before another deafening clap of thunder caused him to jump.

The sound of shattering glass was the last thing any of the poker players in the loft heard before they lost consciousness.

* * *

Sunlight streamed through the gaping hole where the loft's windows had once been, hitting Ryan square in the face. Wincing, he woke up slowly, feeling the crunch of broken glass underneath him as he moved.

Ryan heard one of the women in the room groaning in obvious discomfort. He turned to see Beckett regaining consciousness with a pained expression on her face. _God, what is that popping sound? _She then wrinkled her nose in disgust. _Ugh, and that smell?_

Ryan sniffed the air carefully, trying to determine if there was something in the air that they needed to worry about. "Beckett, I don't smell anything."

Wincing at the volume of Ryan's voice, Beckett turned to him, confused. "Ryan, I didn't say anything...I don't think..." She winced again at the sound of her own voice ringing loudly in her ears. _Jeez, how many drinks did I have last night?_

By now Lanie and Esposito were starting to join their friends in the land of the living, and Ryan noticed that every move any of them made seemed to cause be causing *Beckett* considerable pain. He made his way to his feet, feeling every muscle ache as he stood. Ryan groaned, making a motion of apology to Beckett as he did so, then tiptoed as best he could over to his other two friends. He bent over to help them to their feet - ladies first. "Lanie?" Ryan asked in a whisper, "Can you check on Beckett? She doesn't look too good."

As tired and sore as Lanie was, she snapped to attention immediately when she heard that her best friend might need her help. As Lanie made her way over to Beckett, she couldn't help but notice how every step she took across the broken glass seemed to be causing her friend more pain. "Kate?"

Beckett recoiled as if Lanie had just yelled into her ear with a megaphone. This inspired Lanie's curiosity even further. She moved toward Beckett's arm, trying to encourage the other woman to uncoil herself into a position that would allow Lanie to examine her...

The two women froze as soon as Lanie's hand made contact. Beckett's breathing grew shallow and rapid...while Lanie's breathing appeared to have stopped entirely. Esposito went into a panic, rushing to his ex-girlfriend's side. "Lanie?" he exclaimed, going into an even greater panic when she didn't respond. "LANIE!"

Ryan watched the scene before him with a growing sense of desperation...especially after he noticed that Beckett was no longer responding to Esposito's loud screams. He took one step back to try to leave and get help when Lanie snapped back to life, filling her oxygen-deprived lungs with deep, panicked gulps of air.

Esposito was relieved beyond words to see Lanie conscious and breathing again. "Lanie, Are you okay? What the hell just happened?"

Lanie's breathing started to grow more steady and even as she spoke. "I'm okay, but I have no idea what happened. It's like I fell into a coma for a few seconds-but then I heard Ryan's voice, and it snapped me out of it, I guess."

Esposito was tempted to take Lanie's explanation personally. "Wait a minute, I was screaming at the top of my lungs and you didn't hear me...but you heard *him*?"

Ryan chimed in, "But I didn't say anything."

Lanie stopped Esposito's attempt to argue with Ryan, instead staring at Ryan in amazement. "Wait a second. I didn't hear Ryan in my ears, I heard him *in my head*."

"In your head?" asked Esposito, confused.

Lanie nodded again. "Like the thoughts were mine, but with his voice saying them. 'Jesus, I hope she'll be okay.' 'C'mon Lanie, wake up.' 'Snap out of it.' 'Breathe.' 'Oh God, Javi's screaming at them and Beckett hasn't moved.' 'This is bad, someone's gotta call an ambulance.'"

Ryan's face lost more color with every thought Lanie said she heard. Esposito looked to his partner, then back to Lanie. Nothing she had said did anything to lessen his confusion...if anything, he confusion had only increased. Turning to Ryan, Esposito reminded him, "Wait a minute, bro. You didn't say any of those things. You didn't say *anything*."

His shock deepening, Ryan shook his head in reply. "I didn't *say* anything. But I was *thinking* every one of those things. Word for word."

"That happened to me too," commented Beckett weakly. "Kinda." Everyone turned their attention to Beckett immediately, so she continued in a voice barely above a whisper, "When I first woke up, the first thing Ryan told me was that he didn't smell anything. I hadn't said anything at that point. But I know I was *thinking* it."

Esposito declared, "Okay, I want to try something here." He concentrated for a couple of seconds, then turned to look at his partner.

Ryan thought for a second, then declared in perfect Spanish, "Hermano, yo no sé ustedes, pero realmente espero que usted no está escuchando esto."

Now it was Lanie's turn to be confused, and Esposito's turn to be white as a sheet. Lanie asked, "What does that mean? In English?"

Esposito could barely shake his head. "'Bro, I don't know about you, but I really hope you're not hearing this.' And that's *exactly* what I was thinking. Word. For. Word. In Spanish. Kev, you haven't been taking classes you didn't tell me about, have you?" Ryan shook his head.

Everyone reeled from the implications of what Esposito had just told them, *especially* Ryan. Ryan asked the group, "Okay, we all seem to be experiencing different degrees of crazy, and we're sitting in an apartment that looks like a tornado hit it. Can *anyone* remember what happened last night?"

Every member of the group shook their heads...with one exception. Esposito stood up, and started to wander the room slowly, as if his mind was someplace else. When he finally spoke, it was without any emotion.

"We were all playing poker. There was a crazy thunderstorm going on outside, and the thunder was starting to shake the windows. Ryan had a five of clubs and a two of diamonds and folded right away. I had a Jack and Queen of spades and I called. Lanie had a five and six of hearts and called. Beckett had a seven of hearts and an eight of clubs and raised five dollars. Castle had a 2 of spades and a ten of clubs and raised Beckett another fifteen bucks. Lanie and I folded, but Beckett called him. Castle dealt a queen of clubs, then a ball of lightning broke through the window. A lightning bolt hit me and knocked me out, then one hit Lanie, another hit Ryan, and another one hit Beckett. Then the ball hovered over Castle's head and exploded..."

Esposito's voice trailed off. His attention slowly returned to his friends in the room...who were now all staring at *him*. Ryan seemed to be the first to find his voice. "Javier, you said you were the first one to get knocked out by the lightning. So how do *you* know what happened to *us* after *you* got knocked out?" Esposito shook his head. He knew with absolute conviction that he had described exactly what had gone down the night before, but as to how he knew it...

Lanie asked, "So what happened after the ball of lightning exploded over Castle's head...?"

Immediately the group realized who was missing. Beckett jumped up in a panic, not having noticed that her boyfriend had yet to regain consciousness. They rushed to Castle's side just as he let out a pained groan. "Did anyone get the license plate number of that truck that hit me?" he moaned.

"Lightning bolt, actually, bro," replied Esposito.

Castle's eyes snapped open wide. "I got hit by *lightning*?"

Everyone else nodded. Ryan added, "Apparently, we *all* did. And it's been weird since we woke up. You have no idea how weird..."

Castle sat up enough to be able to take in the condition his home was now in. Without thinking, he complained, "I wish weird were able to fix this place up. What the hell..."

Castle got his wish before he was able to finish his thought. The loft went from disaster to spotless in the blink of an eye. Even the broken windows were repaired as if nothing had happened.

Castle had no idea what to think about the instant change to the scene he saw before him.

So he fainted.

Lanie, Ryan and Esposito wandered around the now-perfect room in open-mouthed shock.

What in the world was going on?

* * *

Castle woke up to Beckett's face hovering over his with concern. He greeted his girlfriend with a smile, "Hey."

Beckett smiled warmly in return. "Hey yourself. You fainted."

"I fainted?"

Beckett nodded. "I'm really glad you're awake. I was getting worried. Do you need anything?"

Castle sat up and stretched his arms. Smacking his lips, he declared, "I could really use a glass of ice water-"

When a glass of ice cold water appeared instantly in his hand, Castle nearly dropped it from the shock. The last memories he had before he fainted came rushing back. "I thought I was dreaming. I woke up on the floor and the loft had been hit by a tornado. Then I blinked, and the loft went right back to normal. It-it wasn't a dream, was it?"

The group shook their heads.

Castle stammered out, "Is-is that what you meant by weird, Ryan?"

"Different for me and Esposito, but yeah, same level of weird."

"Like what?"

Ryan took a deep breath, knowing how crazy what he was about to say was going to sound. "Apparently since we woke up, I've been able to read everyone's thoughts."

Even with the strange things he had just experienced, Castle still had trouble with Ryan's admission. "Telepathy?" he exclaimed. "But-but that's impossible..."

_Apparently not. _Castle stared in awe at Ryan. "That was you I just heard in my head?" Ryan nodded.

Lanie added, "Yeah, he did that to me too. I think it might have saved my life, from what the guys tell me." When that last statement got Castle's full attention, she continued, "Ryan asked me to take a look at Kate, who wasn't looking too good when she woke up. The minute I touched her, I froze. Completely. I even stopped breathing, apparently. If I hadn't heard Ryan in my head, I don't know if I would have come out of it."

"Do you have any idea why you froze?" asked Castle. Lanie shook her head. Castle then turned to Beckett, wanting to hear her side.

"Actually, things haven't been so weird for me. I just felt kind of hung over. Well, except for that smell."

The entire group was now focused on Beckett. "Wait a second," asked Lanie, "what smell?"

"That sulfur smell...you guys didn't smell it? When I woke up it was so bad I almost threw up." Everyone shook their heads again. Beckett finally admitted, "Okay, so maybe things have been a little weird for me too."

"Esposito, how have things been weird for you?" asked Castle.

"I, uh," Esposito stammered, "I, uh, was the the only one who remembers what happened when the lightning struck."

"How is that weird?"

"I was the first one knocked unconscious when it hit," replied Esposito.

Ryan added, "he also remembered other details he couldn't have known - like what everybody had in the last hand we played."

"Apparently you two were trying to bluff each other," Esposito told Castle and Beckett.

Castle tried to process everything he had just heard and combine it with his own experiences. "And I've had two wishes granted..."

Castle didn't realize how hard he had been squeezing his glass of ice water until it broke apart in his hand. The pain shook him out of his musings. Beckett got up to get a towel as Castle started picking glass out of the multiple cuts on his palm...

Which left no one to stop Lanie from grabbing Castle's hand to examine the damage. Castle watched in awe as each cut shrank, then disappeared from his hand completely. He pulled his hand away from Lanie's, looking to his friend with a mixture of amazement and concern. Castle sighed with a small measure of relief at seeing Lanie still breathing, which left the awe and amazement of seeing his now healed hand to flood the rest of his emotions.

Lanie was staring at her own hand like it was disconnected from her body. _Did I just do what I think I just did?_

Ryan pressed a fresh glass of ice water into Lanie's hand with what he hoped was a reassuring smile. "Welcome to the world of weird with the rest of us."


	2. Chapter 2

"Well, that's it, then. We've all officially called in sick." Beckett sighed as she hung up the phone.

"Something wrong, Kate?" asked Castle.

"I don't know," Beckett replied. "It's just harder to feel like we all need a sick day when we're sitting in front of each other." She ran her hands through her hair as she tried to gather her thoughts...a feat that she was finding harder and harder to accomplish when every sound she heard seemed to be amplified a hundred times over before it hit her eardrums. Beckett winced as she heard a car alarm go off, and looked out the window to try and figure out whose car windows she needed to go smash. It wasn't hard for her to locate the offending vehicle...but then she gasped when she saw the signs for the cross street where the vehicle was parked.

Houston and Sixth Avenue. Clear on the other side of town. She shook her head to clear the hallucination out of her mind and focus on what was in front of her. _Gas, _she thought, _maybe that's it. Somebody gassed the apartment and we're all hallucinating. That would explain that smell, at any rate..._

"What would you call it, Kate?" asked Castle quietly. "You and Ryan are both hearing things, God only knows what's going on with me and Lanie...if anyone can come up with a logical explanation, please feel free to speak up."

"And don't forget that Ryan's hearing our thoughts with a hundred percent accuracy," Lanie added, "how the hell do we explain that?"

"I'm kinda surprised you don't have any theories, Castle," remarked Esposito.

"Sorry," Castle apologized, "My active imagination took off when reality became too strange for it to keep up with."

Ryan called to the group from the entrance to Castle's office. "Guys, I think I've got something."

The group surrounded Ryan in Castle's office, curious as to what answers he might have. Ryan began, "Okay, when I first started looking I searched based on the things we were sure about: my...reading minds, Javier's improved memory and Lanie's healing ability. I found absolutely nothing useful. Then I thought about Castle."

"What about me?" asked Castle.

"You've had two moments where something you wished for came true seemingly out of thin air. You've been referring to them as separate incidents, like you've just used two of your three genie wishes. But I started to wonder if two things were actually connected. And then it hit me: Wizard."

Castle's eyes widened, and he practically choked on the word even as he repeated it. "A wizard? You think I might be a wizard?"

Ryan nodded. "At the beginning of Sorcerer's Stone, Harry Potter discovers he's a wizard when all sorts of little things he wishes for start to come true. Sound familiar?" Mutely, Castle nodded, and Ryan shrugged, "Hey, I'm just working off theories right now. The thing is, though, when I added wizard to my list of search terms, I think I might have hit pay dirt. But there's just one other thing I need to confirm..."

Confused, everyone watched as Ryan ran to the kitchen and came back with a glass of water. Handing the glass to Beckett, he asked, "Okay, can you please drink that for me and tell me what you taste."

Warily, Beckett raised an eyebrow and took a cautious sip of the water, spitting it out almost as soon as the offending liquid hit her tongue. "My God, Ryan," exclaimed Beckett, "How much salt did you put in there, anyway?"

Ryan was shaking a little as he took the glass back from Beckett. "I put one grain of salt in this glass, Beckett. And your reaction confirms my suspicions. I found this Wikipedia article on an old Chinese legend called the wizard of the four winds. Guys, the stuff that's happened to us today matches the legend *exactly*. It may even explain a few things we weren't able to figure out for ourselves."

"Like why I went into shock?" asked Lanie.

"Exactly," replied Ryan. "According to the article, the healer in the legend risked getting lost in the healing trance when they didn't have a specific injury or ailment to heal. If the healer got lost in the trance, then only the warrior priest could pull them out of it."

Castle raised an eyebrow. "Warrior Priest?"

"Uh, I think that might be me," replied Ryan. "In the legend, the Warrior Priest was a telepath/empath whose goal was to 'restore peace and balance'. He worked to keep the healer grounded when they needed it, and he was considered the yin to the yang of the Warrior Prophet."

"Who's that?"

"The Warrior Prophet has two gifts: the first one is that he can read the past, present and future of anything by connecting with its chi."

That knocked Esposito for a loop. "Wait a sec, bro. I can see the past *and* the future?"

"If we're a match to the characters in the legend, then yes," replied Ryan.

"What's the other gift?" asked Castle.

"The article wasn't real specific on that one," replied Ryan, "but there's something in the legend about the priest and the prophet teaming up to become the wizard's double-edged sword. When it's needed, the prophet is supposed to be able to call up an army on command and the priest is the one who releases them from service. But the article doesn't say how."

Beckett asked, "Does this legend explain why I felt so sick this morning?"

"Actually, it might. There's a character in the legend called the Hunter. The Hunter is connected to the world in ways that the other characters aren't. The hunter's gift is six enhanced senses. We've only seen three of the physical five in action today, though - taste, hearing and smell-"

"Um, I think sight might have happened too," Beckett admitted quietly. "I heard a car alarm, then looked out the window. I saw the car I thought I was hearing-it was on Houston and Sixth."

"That's all the way over on the west side," Castle gasped, eyes widening. "Are you sure that's where you saw it?"

Beckett answered nervously, "I'm not sure about anything right now, really. But whatever car I was looking at was parked on the corner. I read the street signs right next to it."

Castle grabbed a pair of high-powered binoculars and looked out of the window of his office. "Was the car you saw a neon green Mustang with black flame decals on it?"

"Yeah," Beckett replied, "how'd you guess that?"

"It's still there," Castle declared, his voice shaking a little. He offered his binoculars to his girlfriend. "Right on the corner of Houston and Sixth, just like you said. Wanna see for yourself?"

Beckett crossed the room to the window and took the binoculars from Castle. She put the binoculars up to her eyes...and almost dropped them. "That's the car...that's the car I saw."

Lanie knew her friend needed someone to change the subject, but there was one word out of the Hunter's description she, as a doctor, couldn't shake off. "What's the sixth sense?"

Ryan hesitated a little before answering. "The article called it the sixth sense, not the legend. The legend called it the ability to 'commune with the ancestors'. I think that means the hunter could talk to the dead. I take it that hasn't happened to you today?" Beckett shook her head, and Ryan decided to wrap up his description for his increasingly shell-shocked friends. "I'm not sure how accurate the description of the wizard is. It seemed kind of too all-powerful to be true. Anyway, the wizard's primary talent was the ability to shape the world around him according to his will. Kinda standard wizard stuff to that point. The rest of it I'm not so sure about."

"What is it?" asked Castle nervously.

"Well, he's called the wizard of the four winds because in addition to being a wizard, the article says the wizard in the legend could control the four elements: earth, air, fire and water. Anyway, I'd like to keep digging," Ryan told them. "The article didn't answer all of our questions, and I really want to track down a copy of the legend to fill in those blanks."

Lanie caught the group's attention while Ryan turned back to the computer to try to get back to his research. "Okay, while finding out more about this legend is all well and good, where does that leave us now? Does *anybody* believe that we should pin all our hopes on a Wikipedia article?"

"I don't know," replied Ryan, pushing away from the desk with a frustrated sigh, "but I can tell you one thing: short of the one-in-a-billion chance that we've all lost our minds at the same time, this is the only explanation I've found where everything we've experienced this morning fits."

"The way I see it, we've got two choices," said Esposito. "We can try to forget last night ever happened and go back to to work tomorrow like normal, or we can go to our regular doctors and see if these things can be treated or something."

Beckett was the first to speak up. "I can't just forget this happened, as tempting as that sounds. All morning I've had moments where I heard things, smelled things, saw things when I looked out the window. I thought I was losing it. At least with Ryan's explanation I now have some small idea what's going on. But I can't even imagine going to a crime scene right now."

Ryan agreed. "Guys, I didn't just volunteer to do research for my own curiosity. I can't get your thoughts out of my head. And that's just five people. Put me in the bullpen right now and you might as well have Bellevue pick me up an hour later. And as for going to a doctor..."

"Anyone think we wouldn't all get our own padded rooms if we talk to a doctor about this?" asked Lanie. "Because I can tell you I would think y'all had lost your minds-"

"If it wasn't happening to you too?" asked Esposito. Lanie nodded.

"There is a third choice." Castle now had the group's attention. "We take a couple of days, go someplace private and well...practice."

Beckett had some idea of where Castle was headed, even without the ability to read his mind. "Your place in the Hamptons?"

Castle nodded. "There's plenty of room and the neighborhood is dead this time of year so there's plenty of privacy. That should help Ryan and Beckett a lot..." As they nodded in agreement, Castle continued, "and if there's any chance I have half as much power as this legend says I might have, then wouldn't it make sense to get me out of the middle of Manhattan as quickly as possible in case something goes wrong?"

Everyone agreed that there was a lot of logic to Castle's argument. Lanie asked the group, "Okay then, so are we all agreed with Castle's idea?" As the group nodded, Lanie went on, "then we should all probably go home and pack a bag..."

Lanie's voice trailed off as the members of the group collapsed onto the wet grass. Surprised and disoriented, everyone looked around to try and get some sense of what had just happened to them.

Beckett was the first to realize what had happened. "Uh, guys, I think this is Castle's house."

All eyes glared at Castle, who blushed with embarrassment. He admitted, "Sorry guys, uh, but when I was back at the loft I wished we could all be here already."

Lanie rolled her eyes before leveling an accusatory glance at Castle. "Well so much for packing a bag!"

"But this just proves I was right!" Castle insisted defensively.

Ryan tried to interrupt him. "Uh, Castle..."

Castle ignored Ryan in an effort to complete his train of thought. "I mean, if I was able to get us here just by thinking about wishing for it, I clearly need to be as far away from civilization as I can-"

Ryan grabbed Castle's wrists, forcing the other man to refocus his attention. "Castle!" Ryan declared insistently, "We. Are. Not. Alone. Here."

The group turned to look at the house. Standing motionless on the porch, staring at them, was a pale and very shaky Alexis Castle.

* * *

"So what you're trying to tell me is that the loft got struck by lightning last night?" Castle nodded.

"And when you woke up, you had become a *wizard*?" Swallowing hard, Castle nodded again.

"And your 'wizard powers' fired off before you wanted them to and because of that, you guys just 'appeared' in the backyard."

When Castle nodded a third time, Alexis practically jumped off the couch and started pacing the room furiously. "Dad, do you realize how absolutely *crazy* that sounds?"

Castle sighed loudly. This was a conversation he never hoped to have to have, and he was not surprised one bit to see that it was going so badly. Turning to the group, Castle asked, "Well, since we all came out here to practice, would anyone like to try to help me out here?"

Ryan cautiously volunteered. "I think I have an idea, Castle. Ok if I give it a shot?"

Castle nodded, then turned to Alexis, who sat down next to her father and threw up her hands in a wordless gesture of 'Sure, why not?'

Ryan drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to focus on radiating peace and serenity as best he could.

Every person in the room visibly relaxed - Beckett even cracked her neck and groaned with relief. "Ryan, this feeling...is this that whole 'peace and balance' thing you were talking about before?"

Ryan smiled shyly, blushing a little. "I think it might be, yeah."

"Remind me to take you to every meeting I have with Gates from this point on," replied Beckett with a smile.

Alexis watched the exchange between Beckett and Ryan with a mixture of cautious curiosity. "Detective Ryan?" asked Alexis, "How can you be changing everybody's mood by just thinking about it?"

_I wish I could tell you, Alexis, _thought Ryan, _but I really don't know. It just happened to me at the same time as what happened to your dad._

Alexis gasped, stunned. "Oh my God," she exclaimed, "I was looking at your face that whole time, and you weren't *talking* at all, were you?" Ryan shook his head, and Alexis jumped up to pace again, pure shock overriding any of Ryan's attempts to control her emotional level. Alexis stopped mid-pace, the color draining from her face as she turned back to face her father. "And that means...everything you were trying to tell me...it's all true?" Castle's solemn nod of confirmation caused Alexis' legs to give way beneath her, and Castle was by her side in a heartbeat, leading her slowly and gently back to the couch.

Once Alexis was able to catch her breath again, her mind connected the dots at a furious pace. "Dad said you *all* needed to come out here to practice. That means all of you...?" Beckett, Esposito, and Lanie all nodded. Shocked warred with curiosity in Alexis' heart, and as usual, curiosity won out. "Well?" she asked the trio, "After learning about those two, there's no way in hell you're getting rid of me. Who wants to start?"

Esposito decided to offer himself up first. "But Alexis, what about your midterms? I mean, if you were so worried about them that you came all the way out here for a quiet place to study..."

That threw Alexis for a second. "How did you-wait a second, retrocognition?" When Esposito looked at her in confusion, Alexis clarified, "If I remember correctly, retrocognition is when you can remember events in the past that you couldn't possibly have been a part of. And my midterms have been the farthest thing from my mind since you got here, so there's no way you're telepathic like Detective Ryan. What did you see?"

"You were standing on line for the Wafels and Dinges truck just outside of the main campus gate with your friend Patricia - dark hair, green eyes, really pretty...anyway, you got a Wafel with whipped cream, chocolate syrup and sprinkles, and Patricia got one of those pulled pork things...ugh...anyway, you were saying how much you needed a break because people on your floor are partying so hard you can't concentrate. Patricia suggested you go to the loft, but apparently your dad is almost as much of a distraction. That's when you came up with the idea to come out here for at least the weekend. Your first midterm is not until next Thursday? Wow, you are much more disciplined than I was at your age..."

Alexis cut Esposito off, sufficiently impressed. "I remember. Oh, and Patricia has a boyfriend, so don't even. Can you see the future as well, detective, or just the past?"

"According to this legend that Ryan found, I should be able to see the future too, but I haven't tried yet," replied Esposito.

"Hmmm...maybe we can find a way to work on that..." Alexis mused. She then turned to the two women. "Kate? Lanie? What about you guys?"

"Mine's kind of hard to test, unless you want to cut your finger or something..." replied Lanie. Alexis stood up, ready to head to the kitchen, but Lanie stopped her. "Easy, Red, easy! Apparently I've developed the ability to heal injuries by touch. Can you take my word for it for now? Your dad's had a hard enough day without you slitting your wrists or some other insane stunt..."

Alexis agreed - reluctantly. "All right, Lanie, I'll take your word for it - *for now*. What about you, Kate?"

Kate massaged her temples briefly, trying to drink in as much of the calm Ryan was projecting as she could. "According to the legend, I have my five senses enhanced to supernatural levels and have the ability to speak to the dead. And, unfortunately, right now my new 'abilities' are about as unpredictable as your father's."

Having finally calmed down to a level approaching normal, Alexis started to notice the pain and fatigue in Beckett's features. The younger woman got up from the couch, crossing over to Beckett as quietly as she dared. "Even with the emotions Detective Ryan is projecting, you still look like you're hurting, Kate. Are your senses working at the new levels right now?"

Wincing, Beckett nodded. "My hearing's spiked almost as bad as it did this morning. It's definitely not pleasant."

"Can we try something?" asked Alexis. As the curious glances circulated around the room, Alexis explained, "My girlfriend Patricia - the one Detective Esposito saw - suffered from migraine headaches for years. Her mother dragged her kicking and screaming to a biofeedback clinic, but when she learned the techniques, she got rid of her migraines entirely. I don't think I've ever seen her take so much as a Tylenol. She taught me the basics, and I'm thinking that the same techniques might help you, Kate. Would you be interested?"

Beckett nodded weakly. "At this rate, I'll try anything."

Nodding her confirmation, Alexis drew in a quiet, deep breath, and released is slowly. In a calm, quiet, even voice, Alexis began, "All right, Kate, I want you to close your eyes and take a long, deep breath. Now, I want you to picture a set of five controls on a stereo amplifier. From left to right, the dials are for sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste. The number on the dial represents how your senses are working. Can you tell me what the dials say?"

Beckett replied slowly, her voice tinged with pain. "Sight is twisting between 0 and 5. Hearing is twisting between 8 and 11. The rest are at 5 and not moving."

"Good, Kate," replied Alexis, "I'm really glad you can see the dials. If you can see them, you can turn them down. Let's try it with smell first, since smell's not moving. Can you see your hand moving to the dial?" At Kate's nod, Alexis continued, "Excellent. Turn the dial slowly down to 1, then take a deep breath and tell me what you smell."

Kate drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I don't smell anything. I used to smell the ocean."

"Very good, Kate. You can move that dial back to 5 if you want. Now, let's try that hearing dial. Can you picture your hand moving toward the dial?" Beckett nodded, and Alexis continued, "all right, now take in a deep breath, and as you let that breath out slowly turn the dial back to 5 and don't move your hand until the dial stops moving."

Beckett let out a strained grunt, but then her face relaxed visibly. Alexis smiled. "Kate, that's excellent! One last dial, and then we're done. Take a deep breath, then as you let that breath out, move your hand over to the sight dial, and turn it to the level you want it to stay at and don't move your hand until the dial stops moving."

Kate drew in one last deep breath, then let it out slowly and opened her eyes. It was only at that point that Castle allowed himself to finally smile. Beckett looked more relaxed than she had looked at any point that day. Kate put her hand over Alexis' and gave it a grateful squeeze. "Thank you so much, Alexis. I *finally* feel better."

"I'm just glad I could help," said Alexis, beaming her own happy smile. Suddenly Alexis' eyes lit up with an idea. "Hey, what if I helped you guys practice? That way you guys wouldn't have to be distracted with helping each other and you could focus just on learning what your new capabilities are."

Beckett eyed her boyfriend's daughter with protective apprehension. "Are you sure you want to do this, Alexis? We don't know much about what we're dealing with...it could get dangerous."

Alexis nodded excitedly. "It's not every day you get to run into a bunch of superheroes in training, especially when one of them is your own father. Besides, if I get hurt, apparently Lanie should be able to put me back together again?" Alexis looked to Lanie for confirmation of her last statement and found it with a cautious nod.

Castle beamed with a father's pride, enjoying how enthusiastically his daughter had thrown herself into their unusual situation. Resisting the urge to laugh, he declared, "Well, I have no objections. What about you guys?"

Beckett nodded her approval, and the rest of the group soon followed. Alexis practically squealed with excitement, then her active mind backtracked to something she remembered both Esposito and Beckett bringing up. "Now what's this legend you guys kept talking about?"


	3. Chapter 3

Castle had always been grateful to have this place. It was one of his first real purchases after his second book became a best seller, and being able to retreat out to the peace and quiet of Southampton was often the only thing that could help him get over a particularly bad bout with writer's block.

Now, though, in the midst of all this insanity and chaos, he was even more grateful to be able to share this part of his life with his friends when they needed it the most. Castle watched Beckett as she enjoyed a moment of peace at the other end of the porch. Not wanting to disturb her, Castle sat next to Ryan, handing the other man a cold beer, which Ryan accepted gratefully. "How's she doing?" asked Castle.

"A little better, I think. She said that now that she can finally think clearly she wanted some time to process all this."

"Part of me wonders what it would be like to have her senses..."

"It's incredible, Castle. She's letting me read her mind so I can have a chance to see the sunset through her eyes. Hey, you wanna try it?"

Castle's eyes widened in surprise. "You can do that?"

"Won't know until I give it a shot," Ryan shrugged. He turned to look at Beckett, who gave a wordless nod of consent. Ryan closed his eyes, taking a brief moment to focus on the images he was getting from Beckett, then gently placed his hand over Castle's wrist to help him in his attempt to manage the double connection.

The image that came to Castle's mind took his breath away. It felt like taking the highest of high definition and cranking it up to an entirely new level of clarity. Between the sky's vibrant streaks of red, orange, blue and purple and the sea's riotous swirls of blue and green water...Castle gently slipped his hand out from underneath Ryan's, allowing him to wipe the tears from his eyes as the image receded from the front of his vision to a memory he was sure he never wanted to forget.

Ryan sipped his beer slowly, savoring the images he was getting from Beckett's mind and the chance to finally unwind. "It was kinda nice to get a chance to share that with somebody, Castle."

"She was in so much pain earlier. I'm glad she's finally able to enjoy something out of all of this." Turning to the younger man, Castle added, "Hey, you must not be feeling too bad yourself, if you can pull off something like this."

"All credit for that needs to go to your daughter. When she was talking Beckett through that dial trick I paid attention. Worked just as well for me - might have even been a little easier since I can throw everything into one dial." Ryan's face broke into a gentle, teasing smile. "First time I've been able to get your crazy thoughts out of my head all day."

Castle couldn't help but chuckle at that comment. He knew how often he wished *he* didn't have to deal with what was going through his mind, so he could only imagine what it was like for a first-time visitor. "Thank you for your help with Alexis, by the way," said Castle. "I don't know how well that conversation would have gone if you hadn't..."

"It's totally okay, Castle," Ryan interrupted. "She would have probably found out anyway, so it was good to just get it out in the open now. Besides, don't forget I'm married, Castle. I know what it's like to need to confide in someone outside of the job..." Ryan's voice trailed off as he thought about the one person, who, in the midst of all this madness, had completely slipped his mind. "Oh God, Jenny! What the hell am I going to tell her-?"

"For now, nothing," replied Castle calmly. "Give her a call and tell her I invited you and Esposito away for a guy's weekend of beer drinking, watching sports-whatever you want to tell her. When you get home, though...she's your wife. Tell her as much as you think she needs to know."

Nodding, Ryan got up to find a phone and call his wife. After Ryan went inside, Castle crossed the porch to sit next to his girlfriend, putting his arm around her as she curled up beside him. "Feeling better, Kate?"

Kate nodded, and Rick swore he could feel her smile even if he wasn't looking down to see it. "When the sun started to set, I tried playing with the dials the way Alexis talked me through. I was able to turn up my sight and turn down my hearing just enough to stop hearing what was going on inside the house and focus on the waves. But Ryan told me that you got to feel a bit of that?"

"Yeah," Castle replied, a little speechless even at the memory of it. "Kate, what you see...that was amazing..."

"*Alexis* was the amazing one today, Rick. *I* still have trouble believing that all this is actually happening to us, and not only did she take all of it in stride, she found a way to help me deal with it. I'm in her debt for that."

"I'm sorry that I-"

Kate stopped Rick before he was able to chastise himself as she was sure he had been doing to that point. "Rick, we've *all* been faced with the craziest things today. It's completely understandable to have trouble dealing with it. *Completely.* Unless you're an expert in biofeedback and I didn't know about it, then there was nothing you could have done."

Sufficiently chastised, Rick agreed, "Yeah, I know how scared I was when that glass of water appeared in my hand...and I was the one who at least *believed* in magic..."

"I think the fact that I've been dealing with something that's explainable and just magnified has made it a little easier to swallow. And to be honest I was just so uncomfortable that I haven't had much of a chance to think about it. Talk to me when I start seeing ghosts and you might get a completely different response," Beckett replied nervously.

It was then that Castle remembered something he hoped Kate would find amusing. "You know, all of this is on my bucket list."

Beckett's eyes widened a little. "It is? Matching up with some old Chinese legend is on your bucket list?"

Rick nodded, "Actually I think the exact wording was to 'develop super power'."

That earned the hoped-for smile and a hearty chuckle from Kate. "Why am I not surprised?"

* * *

"Okay. Okay! Have a good night, honey. I'll see you on Monday night. Yeah, I love you too. Bye."

Ryan hung up the phone, looking up to find his partner drenched in sweat and the happiest he'd seen him all day. The man looked positively giddy. On a day like this, Ryan wondered if that was a good thing or a bad thing. "Javi?" asked Ryan warily. "You're in an awfully good mood."

"Bro," beamed Esposito, "I need you to come with me. There's something you have *got* to see."

Curious, Ryan followed Esposito out to the backyard. "Okay, what is it?"

Esposito got to the point right away. "Ryan, jump on the roof."

"Excuse me?"

Slowly, Esposito repeated, "Ryan, I want you to *see you* *jump* on the *roof*."

"But-but that's impossible!"

"Really?" Esposito's ear-splitting grin seemed to grow even wider as he turned to face the house, plant his feet and jump, landing squarely on the roof, two stories above Ryan's head.

Ryan thought he couldn't be left speechless by anything else today. _Clearly, I was wrong. _He yelled up to his partner, "How the hell did you do that?"

"Get up here," called down Esposito, "and I'll tell you!"

"Get up there," mumbled Ryan. "He wants *me* to get up *there*..." Finally deciding to trust his partner, Ryan planted his feet, bending his knees each time he counted, "One...two...three-"

...and landed squarely on the roof, right next to his partner. And he was somehow *sure* he could have jumped higher if he needed to. Ryan was having trouble believing his eyes. "What-how-?"

"When everybody scattered, I decided to go for a run to clear my head. I found this old wall at the edge of Castle's property. I climbed up the wall - the old-fashioned way-then I walked along the pieces of the wall and practically flew off the other side. It felt crazy easy, so I started playing around. Ryan, I've tried every Matrix John Woo Hong Kong karate movie wire trick I could possibly think of. Bro-they've *all* *worked*."

Ryan stared over the edge of the roof, re-validating the evidence he himself experienced. "Including jumping two stories onto a roof."

"Including jumping two stories onto a roof. That's when something hit me from that legend you found." Pointing to his partner, then to himself, Esposito explained, "Warrior priest...warrior prophet. I figured if I can do it, you could do it."

"Apparently so." _Just when I thought this day couldn't get any crazier..._Ryan stared out at the ocean from their unusual vantage point, then turned back to his partner. "Okay, Javi, I know you didn't get me up here just for the view. What's your plan?"

The grin in Esposito's face turned slightly devilish. "Bro, how would you feel about being my sparring partner?"

* * *

Beckett and Castle made their way into the kitchen to find that Alexis and Lanie had prepared enough food to feed a small army. "Lanie told me you guys have barely eaten since yesterday," said Alexis, "so I figured you were probably hungry."

Castle sniffed the air appreciatively. "It does smell really good, honey. Thank you."

Lanie and Alexis shared a look of 'You tell them-no, you tell them!' after Castle's compliment. Finally when Lanie started rummaging around the kitchen pulling together the fixings for the chili bar, it was left to Alexis to admit, "Actually, there was an ulterior motive to having a home-cooked meal, tonight, dad." She grabbed a pen and notepad and turned to Kate. "Lanie told me you're a pretty decent cook, even if your schedule doesn't allow you much of a chance to do anything with it."

Beckett eyed the pen and paper warily. "So this is a test?"

Alexis nodded. "Use sight, smell and taste to determine all the ingredients in the chili. You don't have to be specific about the quantities - saying 'a lot' or 'a little' or other things like that would be okay. Are you up for it?"

Beckett sighed loudly. She was exhausted from having spent so much of the day in pain and had been hoping the 'practice sessions' wouldn't start until after she'd had chance to have a good night's sleep. Still, one look at the hopeful expression on Alexis' face and Beckett knew she couldn't refuse the girl anything. Grabbing then pen and notebook, Beckett relented with a sigh. "Okay, Alexis, dish up the chili."

Alexis relaxed visibly when Beckett agreed to the test over dinner, but Beckett couldn't help but notice how much her best friend relaxed as well. Feigning a wounded pride, Beckett teased her friend, "Et tu, Lanie?"

"It's for a good cause," replied Lanie with great confidence. "Javi and I have a little more control over whatever these abilities are." Holding her hands up to show her accessories, she continued, "at the very least, I can wear gloves, which I have to do 90% of the time anyway. But you, Castle and Ryan need to figure out how to control this stuff in order to stay a part of the civilized world. So the more you practice, the faster you'll get the control you need."

Finding that argument impossible to refute, Beckett dug into her chili just as Ryan and Esposito entered the kitchen drenched in sweat. Wrinkling her nose, Beckett grabbed her bowl of chili and the notebook, exiting to the porch just as the two men dished up their bowls. It wasn't until both men devoured several large bites of their meal that they realized the rest of the people in the room were staring at them. Esposito was the first to find his voice, even if it was through a mouthful of chili. "Wha? Wha we do?"

"Kate was in the middle of a test," replied Lanie, "and you don't need a hyper-sensitive sense of smell to know that you two *reek*. What were you doing? Basketball?"

Ryan and Esposito looked to each other, trying to decide who would be the one to speak. Ryan finally won out. "We, uh, we had some things to practice ourselves."

"Really?" asked Alexis. "Like what?"

_You want to explain this, bro? _thought Esposito, trusting that his partner would 'listening'.

Ryan looked to his partner, then decided, "Would it be ok if we wait to tell you guys until after dinner? Espo and I worked up a hell of an appetite."

The other three people in the room nodded. Lanie warned, "All right, but I *promise* I'll hold you to it."

"Deal," agreed Esposito, smiling. Neither man was going to turn down another opportunity to practice their newly discovered gift.

As the group returned to their meals, Alexis asked Ryan, "So how is your practice going, Detective Ryan? Lanie tells me that this morning you were as worried about your control as Kate has been."

"Actually, things have been going pretty well," replied Ryan. "I picked up on that dial trick you taught Beckett, which helped me bring the background thoughts to a dull roar. I have no idea how I'm going to do once I get back to the precinct, but for now..."

"You can at least be around people without all their thoughts running through your head driving you crazy," Alexis completed the thought. "You're right, that is pretty good."

"Thank you," Ryan agreed, "I think so. Still need a lot more practice, though. And I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to Lanie."

"That's okay, Ryan," Lanie chimed in, "I really don't have much idea of what I'm doing either." Holding up her left hand she added, "hence the gloves."

Alexis asked, "So you're going to wear gloves the rest of your *life*? No, I don't think so. I have a couple of ideas, and if Detective Ryan has as much control as he says he does, then we can work on them after dinner."

Beckett came in from the porch carrying an empty bowl and a heavily scribbled-in notebook. "First of all," Beckett told Lanie and Alexis, smiling warmly, "that chili was delicious. And that challenge was a pain in the neck." She handed the notebook to Alexis. "Here's your list."

Alexis studied the list carefully, smiling as she reached the end. "You missed the paprika and the oregano. But only missing two ingredients out of twenty-five is pretty good, especially for someone whose fridge is dominated by old take-out containers..."

Kate took the teasing in stride. "Hey, you gotta start somewhere..."

"Okay, it looks like everyone's done with dinner," remarked Lanie. Turning to Ryan and Esposito, she then asked, "so what were you guys practicing *before* dinner?"

Esposito was too excited to wait any longer. He confessed to the group, "We were sparring..."

"Yeah?" asked Beckett.

"On the roof."

The other members of the team looked to the guys in confusion. "Why would you be sparring on the roof?" asked Castle.

"Come and see," replied Esposito.

The guys led the group out to the backyard. Lanie, Alexis and Castle watched in awe as Ryan and Esposito jumped, kicked, twisted and flew around the roof, trying to find every way they could think of to show off their new ability to spectacular effect.

Beckett, on the other hand, surprised even herself when she felt a slight twinge of jealousy as she watched Ryan and Esposito's antics. Something in the depths of her soul told her that she could do exactly what Ryan and Esposito were doing, just as well as they were doing it. Taking in a deep breath to suppress the rational voices in her head, Beckett jumped...

...and landed squarely on the roof, narrowly missing getting kicked in the head by Esposito. The two men stopped their sparring briefly, surprised at the discovery that they were no longer alone. "Hi guys!" exclaimed Beckett, smiling. "Mind if I join you?"

Esposito was, for his part, speechless. He could barely stammer out, "What-Beckett-how?"

Ryan was starting to get really tired of hearing the 'how' question after everything that had happened over the course of the day. "Guys," he declared, "I'd like to propose a group rule #1."

"What's that, bro?" asked Esposito.

"Don't ask a question you don't really want to hear the answer to."

Alexis, unsurprisingly, took the revelation of the new ability in stride. "Guys," she called up to the group, "can Detective Ryan come down to help me with Lanie?" Castle even noticed the devious glint in his daughter's eye as she continued, "I promise I'll let the three of you work on this first thing tomorrow!"

Ryan turned to Beckett and Esposito, smiling even as he backed up toward the edge of the roof. "Well, other duties call, guys," he declared. "I'll see you later."

Beckett found it impossible not to laugh as Ryan saluted his friends before performing a backwards double-twisting somersault off the roof to land safely on his feet less than a foot away from Alexis. Beckett called down to her friend, only half-teasing, "Showoff!"

Alexis called back in response, "Yell if somebody breaks something!"


	4. Chapter 4

"So how are we going to practice, Alexis?" asked Lanie. "It's not like I'm going to let you hurt yourself, and there's no way in the world we're going to a hospital."

"Actually," replied Alexis, "we're not going to test the whole healing thing yet. You're right about it being too risky to do anything deliberate. In fact, the plan is to practice by you *not* being in a position where you have to work on something specific."

Ryan knew where this was going. "You want to replicate this morning."

Alexis nodded. "Lanie, you didn't have anything specific you were looking for when you started to examine Kate. That's why you froze. From what I could get from the legend, knowledge is power for you. That's why you were able to heal the cuts on my dad's hand so easily-they were obvious. So the first goal is going to be getting you to the point where you can touch someone without getting sucked into the trance."

"And I'll be right here to snap you out of it if things go too far," assured Ryan.

"To be honest, I'm scared," Lanie finally admitted. "I felt like I was drowning this morning. And there's a part of me that would rather keep these gloves on than go through that again."

Ryan decided to 'turn on the charm', as he was starting to think of it, hoping to give Lanie some measure of comfort. "Lanie, none of us had any idea what was going on this morning. Hell, it was only through what happened with *you* that I started to find out what was happening to *me*. I can completely understand being scared. But, you can't keep the gloves on forever..."

"Wanna bet?" Lanie commented nervously. Her face finally relaxing into a small smile, she told Ryan, "I wish you could bottle that, Kevin. It would save me hundreds in spa trips." She drew in a deep breath, summoning every ounce of courage that she had and some of the extra that Ryan was trying to give her. Turning to Alexis, Lanie tentatively pulled the gloves off her hands. "So who am I going to practice on?"

"Me." Alexis put her hand on the table within Lanie's easy reach, but Lanie rejected that idea immediately. She put her hands up in the air and started to back away from the table, shaking her head. "Your father will wish me into the heart of a volcano if anything happened to you, Alexis. No way. Not gonna happen."

"Practice on me, then." The group turned to see that Castle drying his hands after having cleaned the kitchen. "If you don't want to practice on Alexis, Lanie, then I volunteer."

Switching test subjects did nothing to ease Lanie's nerves. If anything, she became even *more* nervous. "I don't know, Castle. After what happened with Kate-"

"What happened with Kate is exactly the reason you need to get control over this, Lanie." The deadly serious tone in Castle's voice was all that everyone needed to understand that Castle was no longer talking about the events of the morning. "You completely healed my hand after I broke that water glass, Lanie. I don't even have any scars, when by rights my hand should be covered with them. Every time I look at my hand, now, I keep thinking about the one scar I wish to God had never happened."

Ryan gasped as Castle's memory hit him full force. Tears welled up in his eyes as he struggled to describe what he was seeing to the group. "Beckett's shooting...I'm *feeling* Castle's memory of it. God, Castle..."

Castle's focus never left Lanie. "I'm going to live with that memory every day of my life, Lanie. I know you do, too. But can you imagine how different that memory would have been under our current circumstances?"

Tears in her own eyes, Lanie nodded. _No hospital. No scars. No months of isolation, or rehab, or whatever the hell that was when she shut me out. Aw hell, with what this bunch has done today she probably could have caught Maddox and dodged that damn bullet altogether. Or caught it in her teeth._

"Now, as far as I know, we can't travel back to that day and stop it from happening. Still, I don't think it's escaped anybody's notice that there are still people out there who would be very happy to see Kate, or any of you, dead. Which means there might come a time where you have to be the one to step in and save one of our lives. And if I can help you to be ready to do that, then I'll do whatever it takes."

Lanie saw the determination in Castle's eyes, and she knew there would be no talking the man out of any of it. "Okay," she relented. "Just tell me what I need to do."

Alexis relaxed. It was starting to feel like the hardest part was over. Turning to her father, Alexis instructed him, "Well, first, dad, you need to clear your mind and relax. If Detective Ryan has to worry about you *and* Lanie then this is going to be a whole lot harder." When she was able to watch the dark cloud lift from Ryan's face, Alexis turned to the other two people at the table. "Lanie, I seriously doubt that the trance problem is that one second you're there and the next you're gone. There's got to be a process here, even if we don't know what it is yet. Detective Ryan, that's where you come in. If you can stay in Lanie's head while she's under and figure out what's going on when she gets lost, then she should be able to learn how to head it off at the pass-or at least, that's the theory."

Lanie nodded, understanding the concept immediately. "I know this is going to sound crazy," she confessed, "but it makes me feel better knowing I'm not going into any of this alone...even though it's all going to be going on in my head...if that makes any sense."

"Oddly enough, it kinda does," admitted Ryan.

"Then shall we get started?" asked Alexis. Lanie and Ryan nodded.

Castle, Lanie and Ryan took almost simultaneous deep breaths, trying to clear their minds to focus on the task at hand. Ryan acted first, and Lanie twitched briefly as Ryan entered her mind. Once she recovered from that unusual sensation, Lanie closed her eyes and covered Castle's hand with her own.

Lanie's body twitched rapidly as her grip on Castle's hand grew stronger. Ryan grabbed the table until his knuckles grew white, overwhelmed by the assault of images on his mind. But almost as quickly as it started, the spasms subsided, and the trio relaxed, opening their eyes and disconnecting from each other to each return to their own bodies.

"Wow," said Lanie, breathless. "That was...that was intense."

"Agreed," chimed in Castle. "I almost feel like I need a cigarette." Lanie smacked him on the back of the head for the comment, which everybody else was smart enough to ignore.

Alexis was far more intent on understanding what she had just seen. "Lanie, from what I can tell, you never stopped breathing?" Alexis looked to Ryan to confirm her observations, and received that confirmation with a nod. She then asked Ryan, "Detective? Did she ever get close to getting lost again?"

Ryan shook his head even as he was catching his breath, the realization hitting him even as he said it aloud. "No. She was fascinated, excited, maybe a little awe-struck. But it felt like after the initial jump, you knew exactly where you were going, Lanie."

"Actually, I did," agreed Lanie. "It was just like you said, Alexis - knowledge is power. I don't remember much about what happened with Kate, but what I do remember was this crazy feeling of overload before my brain shut down. I can understand why the legend warned that the healer could get lost. If you didn't understand what you were seeing, that overload could happen *really* easily."

"So what made the difference?" asked Alexis.

Lanie replied, "Honestly, it might be the fact that I'm an ME. I see the inside of the human body a lot more than even most doctors. And *that's* what I was seeing. Granted, what I saw was a lot more alive than what I normally see on the job, but it was definitely body parts. It might take me a couple of rounds to see what I can do with the information, but I can definitely say I don't need to live my life in these gloves."

"Thank God!" Alexis exclaimed with relief.

Beckett's panicked scream interrupted the group's conversation. Lanie jumped up and led the group outside at a run only to stumble upon one of her worst nightmares: Javier Esposito laying on the ground, unconscious.

By the time Ryan had made it outside, he could tell by the rapid twitching of Lanie's eyes that she had already entered her trance. But unlike her previous efforts, Lanie's hands were moving with deliberate purpose over his partner's neck and spine. Still concerned that Lanie might get lost in an emotional panic, Ryan tried to enter Lanie's mind for support, only to stagger back under the force of a surprisingly strong mental shove.

Lanie collapsed backwards on the ground as Esposito regained consciousness with a loud groan. Sitting up again slowly, Lanie then proceeded to beat up the man she had just worked so hard to heal. "Javier Esposito...don't ever...make me...do...that...again!"

Holding up his hands to fend off Lanie's punches, Esposito yelled out, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

Once she got the panic, worry and anger out of her system, Lanie gave Esposito one last hard punch in the arm. "You scared me half to death!"

Catching his breath, Esposito finally got a chance to speak once Lanie stopped trying to kill him. "I'm sorry," he repeated, the sincerity evident in his voice.

"What happened?" asked Castle.

Esposito started to rub the spot on his arm where he could feel a bruise slowly forming. Nodding his head to Beckett, he declared to the group, slightly irritated, "Your girlfriend beat the crap out of me!" Turning to Ryan, he added, "You know what the difference is between the warrior and the hunter?"

"What?" asked Ryan.

"Night vision. As it got darker I had trouble seeing where I was going. Beckett, apparently, had no such trouble. That's what led to my header off the roof. Tomorrow, we start sparring at *ground* level."

* * *

One good thing about crashing at the house of a famous author is that there are a ton of books to read to unwind before bed. Especially Richard Castle novels. Lanie was just getting into "Death of a a Prom Queen" when there was a knock on the bedroom door. Not wanting to lose her spot, she called out "just a second!" while dog-earing the page and closing the book.

She looked up to see Esposito open the door and close it quietly behind him. "Javi?" she asked quietly, "I figured you'd be passed out already. You've had a hell of a night."

Esposito sat at the foot of the bed, having trouble finding what he wanted to say. "So did you...from what Castle was telling me, anyway..."

"You didn't...look?"

Esposito shook his head. "After what they told me happened, it's probably better if I don't."

The couple sat for what felt like an eternity, hating the silence but not knowing what to say to each other. Finally, after both of them made a couple of attempts to start speaking at the same time, Lanie was the first one to find the words she wanted to say. "I was so scared tonight, Javi. I thought I'd almost lost you."

"You probably would have...if..."

"If we hadn't entered the twilight zone sometime last night?"

Esposito nodded. Thinking it over, he added, "Of course, if last night hadn't happened, chances are pretty good Beckett and I wouldn't have been Matrix fighting on Castle's roof this evening, either."

That was logic that was hard to argue with and Lanie found she couldn't suppress her smile. "True." Silence descended on the room again, and Lanie started to realize that if she was ever going to clear the air between them, now was probably the time. _Of course, _she thought_, it would help if my brain could actually come up with the words._ "Javier, you know why...did I ever tell you why...why I..."

"Why you turned me down when I was on one knee with a ring in my hand? I think you gave me some cock-and-bull excuse about how your parents couldn't make it work so you were sure that meant that you couldn't..."

"That wasn't it," Lanie admitted. She drew in a deep breath to steady her heavily frayed nerves. "I deal with death every day. And I know the normal risks you take every day; they're part of the job. I swore up and down from the day I started with the coroner's office that I was not going to get involved with a cop. So when we first started seeing each other I promised myself that it was just sex, that it was just a fling-"

"And then it wasn't."

"And then it wasn't. Javi, falling for you scared me to death. I started having nightmares. I would go into work, scrub up, open the body bag on my table and find you in it. I couldn't deal."

"That's why you said no?" Lanie nodded. "Baby, why didn't you tell me this before? Why tell me this now?"

Lanie chewed on her bottom lip for a moment, wrangling up the courage to continue. "I've been thinking about talking to you since you and Beckett went after Maddox and almost got yourselves killed. I've seen how Beckett and Castle are around each other. How being together made them better on the job, makes their lives better..."

"Even with the risks."

"Yeah." Lanie pushed herself forward on the bed, making sure she was able to take his hands up with her own. She noticed the bruise she had left on his arm and gently caressed the spot, the black and blue skin disappearing under her touch. Lanie then allowed herself a small moment of amazement and satisfaction before looking her man in the eye to speak once again. "Javier, I'm starting to wonder if I made a mistake that night. I miss you. I miss *us*. Now, I'm not asking you to ask me again right this second..." Esposito smiled, knowing that that had *not* been in his plans for the evening, "but I'm asking you if you'd be willing to see if we can make this work. Can make *us* work."

As Esposito cupped Lanie's cheek with his hand, a vision took him somewhere else...somewhere he knew was in their future.

He was in the backyard of Castle's Hamptons place, surrounded by his friends and with the ocean behind him. His Lanie, his beautiful Dr. Parrish, was at his side, hair shorter than than it is now, but curled and decorated with white flowers running down the right side. Her dress was ankle-length, but still breathtaking, and the white silk made her face glow in the late afternoon sun. His heart soared as he watched the future version of himself obey, with enthusiasm, the command to kiss his bride...

Esposito let the future fade from his sight as his attention turned to the present and the nervous woman he held in his arms and his heart. Smiling, he placed a gentle kiss on her lips, then teased, "Of course, you had to do this on a night where you just saved my life, so how could I *possibly* say no..."

"Javi?"

"Yeah, babe?"

"Shut up."


	5. Chapter 5

Sometimes the beauty of a new day is the promise of what the day to come will bring you.  
Sometimes the beauty of a new day is the ability to put the events of the previous day behind you.

Alexis looked up from her desk, recognizing by the all-too-familiar sensation of neck pain that she had fallen asleep on her laptop. Her sleep-fogged brain scanned the screen to refresh her memory of which of her classes she had been studying for when she passed out. Seeing the screen covered with websites on witchcraft forced the memories of the events of the previous day to the front of her mind.

She took her time shutting down her computer, using the routine of closing each window in turn to let the full impact of her memories sink in.

_My dad's a wizard.  
My *dad's* a *wizard*._

Alexis stretched and yawned, collecting up the notes she had taken the previous night and reviewing them, shaking her head in amazement as she caught glimpses of words like telepathy and retrocognition.

Her world had changed in the literal blink of an eye. Yet, it was starting to feel oddly comforting to know that when her father was out working on cases that he was now a superhero in a company full of superheroes.

It was hard not to worry about her dad's safety sometimes. She understood why her dad kept shadowing Kate...and it wasn't just because he was so head-over-heels in love with her. They made a difference. Every day Kate and her friends were able to go to work and make a difference in someone's life. That was why she applied for the internship with Lanie; seeing her dad so dedicated to being a part of life at the 12th had inspired her to want to help, too.

Still, before yesterday the only protection her father had was his 'Writer' bulletproof vest. Now, though, there was *far* more power at her dad's disposal, and she was determined to make sure he would be able to take full advantage of it.

Alexis closed the door to her bedroom quietly, then came downstairs to the smell of coffee. _Okay, somebody's up. _She worked to set her own thoughts aside as she poured herself a cup.

One of the things that Alexis found the most amazing out of the events of the previous day was how willing they were to let her stay and help them out. So if they needed her to be personal trainer, confidante, sounding board and Justice League den mother, then that was what she was going to do. She opened the door to the back porch to find Ryan watching the sunrise, coffee in hand, deep in thought.

"Good morning Alexis," Ryan greeted her without turning around.

"Good morning, Detective Ryan," replied Alexis. "You're up early."

"To be honest, I was hoping I was going to wake up in my own bed next to my wife and find out that this was all some really weird dream. When I woke up *here*, I still held on to the weird dream theory. But when you came out here, and I heard your thoughts..."

Alexis sat down in the chair next to Ryan's. "Disappointed?"

"Not sure yet," replied Ryan, sipping his coffee.

"Change is hard," reassured Alexis, "whether it's graduating high school, starting college...or developing a supernatural ability out of the blue. It feels awkward at first, even scary, but you get used to it slowly, and eventually it just becomes another part of your life. You'll get there."

Ryan smiled at the well-timed advice. "Your dad raves about how brilliant you are, you know."

"My dad is *biased*, detective. All I really do is pay attention."

"As a detective, I can tell you that that's more than a lot of people in this world."

"True," added Alexis, finally accepting the compliment. "Do you feel like you can handle being back in the city?"

"No," Ryan replied, nervously. "I mean, I think I can keep the dial turned down, but when I have to deal with so many thoughts..."

"I've been thinking about that," said Alexis. "I don't think the dial is going to work for you in the long run."

"Really? Why do you say that?"

"Throwing all the thoughts you're hearing into one dial works if you want to tune out all the thoughts you're hearing, but what if you want to hear just one person's thoughts, say, in the bullpen? You need to be able to focus on one person's thoughts no matter how many other people are in the room."

"I take it you have a different idea?"

"Instead of the dial, picture a TV remote. When you need to shut out all the thoughts you're hearing, use the power button. But then you can also mute individual voices, change the volume-even channel surf if you need to sort through a bunch of people's thoughts."

Ryan finished his coffee as the waking thoughts of his friends touched the edges of his mind. "That's a good idea, Alexis, I'll try that today. Thanks."

"Just trying to help, detective."

Ryan knew exactly where they would have been without Alexis' help. "After everything you did yesterday for me, for all of us, the *least* you can do is call me Kevin."

"Kevin," Alexis repeated, smiling as she realized they had become good enough friends that she felt comfortable with using his first name. Then, getting up from the chair, she followed Kevin into the kitchen.

They arrived to find Beckett and Castle already in the kitchen, getting out the supplies to make more coffee. "Morning dad, Kate," Alexis greeted them, "ready to practice today?"

Castle replied with a long, weary sigh. "I woke up this morning convinced that yesterday had just been some weird dream...that I'd get out of bed and look in the mirror and find that I had sun poisoning or something and had been hallucinating."

"You too, huh?" Ryan sympathized.

"So what happened?" asked Alexis.

"You know that amazing bagel place around the corner from the loft?" Alexis nodded, and Castle brought a tray full of bagels over from the nearby kitchen counter. "Have one."

Alexis took a bagel, tore off a piece and ate it, smiling as she recognized the unique texture. "You...?"

"Yep," replied Castle.

Alexis noticed the mixed emotions playing across her father's expressive face. "Dad? I always thought you would think something like this was the best thing ever."

"I always thought so, too...until it happened. Lex, I've never been so scared of words in my life. I mean, what would happen if I said the wrong thing? Hell, *thought* the wrong thing?"

"Would it help if I told you I'm not worried?" replied Alexis. Since she knew that had gotten her father's attention, Alexis continued, "Dad, if you were a guy my age I'd be terrified. But I know you better than that. First of all, I don't know anyone who has the respect for the power of words that you have. You're the one who taught it to me. Plus, for the first time I can remember, you seem happy. I mean, think about it: can you think of something that you really, truly want out of your life that you don't already have?"

Castle looked around at his incredible girlfriend and brilliant daughter. He had great friends, a job that was supremely satisfying and had made him very rich, and a 'hobby' that allowed him to actually make a difference in the world. _Alexis is right, _thought Castle, _and I'm one of the luckiest men in the world._

Alexis studied her father's face as he carefully considered her words. She didn't need Ryan's telepathic ability to know that he had gotten her point. "I'm not saying there aren't things you'll need to learn to get these abilities under control and keep them that way. And we're going to work on it until it starts to sink in. But if there's anyone I've ever met who could handle having to deal with something like this, it's you."

Ryan turned to see his partner and Lanie head down the stairs, both relaxed and smiling in a way that neither of them had for months. He greeted them, "Morning, guys. How're you doing?"

Beckett watched her friends with a knowing smile. "I'm guessing they had a good time last night. A *really* good time."

Lanie blanched, then blushed. "How did you-?"

"Superhearing, remember?"

Esposito and Lanie looked at each other and burst out laughing. Lanie asked her friend, "Can I fill you in later?"

"You better," replied Beckett, her smile widening. "I want *details*."

"So what's the plan today, Alexis?" Esposito asked, desperate to change the subject, "It seemed like you had a specific idea in mind when you saw us on the roof yesterday."

"I did," replied Alexis. "I think you should play hide and seek."

That was the last thing the three cops were thinking. "Hide and seek? Really?"

Alexis nodded. "Yep. Kate, the woods around here are filled with deer and wild turkey. You'll need to do a lot of filtering to figure out the difference between a wild animal and these guys."

"Sometimes I wonder about that difference myself-" cracked Lanie.

Esposito interrupted her, feigning insult. "Hey, hey, hey woman! I resent that!"

"*Anyway*," Alexis spoke up to break up the couple's teasing, "Kevin, this will be a great opportunity to practice with that remote control technique we talked about, since you should only focus on the thoughts of whoever's 'it'. And Detective Esposito, you've been able to connect to the past pretty well, but this is a chance to work on connecting to the short-term future. Your goal is to focus on where you see that you're going to get caught and avoid it. And, to make the whole thing a little more interesting, whoever's it will get to use this."

Beckett fought the urge to laugh as she watched her two colleagues practically start drooling over the the weapon whose case Alexis had just opened. Turning to her boyfriend, she teased, "Castle, why does it not surprise me that you have a $1,500 paintball gun?"

"Oh my dear Detective Beckett," replied Esposito, "this is not just a paintball gun. This is a Planet Eclipse Geo2 Marker." Taking the gun from Alexis and delicately cradling it in his arms, Esposito declared, his voice cracking with emotion, "this...this is a thing of beauty."

"Hey, how did you know how much the gun cost, anyway?" asked Ryan.

Taking the marker out of Esposito's hands, Beckett loaded it and looked down its long barrel with an ease that spoke of experience with the weapon. Grinning wickedly, she turned to Ryan and Esposito and teased, "What, you thought I'd never played paintball before?"

"What about me, Alexis?" asked Lanie.

Smiling, Alexis put an arm around her father's shoulder as she explained, "Well, Lanie, I have one goal for today. Since I want to focus completely on my dad-it means we'll probably need the paramedics on standby."


	6. Chapter 6

"Are you sure about this?"

Alexis sighed. "No, but that's why Lanie's here. Dad, we went over this. The legend was very specific about the fact that the wizard had control over the elements. And there was a point in the legend where he did exactly this."

Castle walked to the edge of the pool and peered over its edge. "But why does this have to be the *first* test?" he whined.

"Because it's an instinctive action," replied Alexis. "And if it works, then we can verify you match the wizard of the legend and we have a better idea of what else we should test. Now are you going to get in, or do I have to push you?"

Castle took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, savoring it as if it might be his last. Finally, he decided to trust his daughter and jumped in.

Alexis watched nervously as her father sank under the water. She knew she was putting a lot of faith in the legend, and she had complete confidence that Lanie could bring her father back if anything happened.

Nevertheless, she had just told her own father to basically drown himself in their family pool.  
It was a hell of a way to start his testing session.

Lanie held the stopwatch in her hand, waiting to start it as soon as Castle's last air bubbles popped on the surface of the water. Finally, the bubbles stopped, and both women waited anxiously, expecting to have to go through watching the painful sight of seeing Castle struggle and panic.

It never happened. Instead, after the most painful 20 seconds of Alexis' life, her heart soared with relief and excitement as she watched her father take a victory lap around the bottom of the pool.

When he completed the lap of the pool, Castle's head finally broke the surface of the water. He coughed a couple of times, took in one giant breath of oxygen, and released it in a primal yell so loud that Lanie wondered if they might have heard it in New Jersey. "That's it!" Castle exclaimed joyously, "Tomorrow my scuba gear goes up on eBay!" Calming down only slightly, Castle turned to his daughter, "Alexis, remember how scared I told you I was at breakfast?" When Alexis nodded, Castle continued, "Forget it! This *is* the best thing ever! What's next?"

"Get out of the pool."

Castle started to use the wall to push himself up out of the pool, but stopped when Alexis coughed to get his attention. "What?"

"Uh, dad, you're a wizard with total control over the elements. Specifically, total control over *water*. Try again."

"Try again she says," Castle mouthed mockingly, "try again." He smiled wickedly as he realized the perfect way to exit the pool. Castle went to the end of the pool opposite Alexis and Lanie and floated face down. The water started to churn heavily and push towards him. As soon as he had collected enough water, a giant wave rushed toward the women at a speed that made it impossible for them to get out of the way.

Castle floated down to land gently, standing up, next to his fully drenched friend and daughter. Alexis tried to look unfazed even as her father smirked mercilessly at her. Flinging her hair back and spitting out a mouthful of water, she forced herself to speak as calmly as she could. "Okay, dad, while that was...unexpected, it was good. Now, can you dry us off, please? It's *October*, and I don't know about you, but I'm *freezing*."

They were all dried off in the blink of an eye-just in time for Beckett, Ryan and Esposito to run into the pool area and nearly knock them back into then water. Beckett, was the first to find her voice. "Castle, is everything all right? I heard screaming."

"Actually...yeah, everything's fine. I...we just found out that I can breathe underwater."

When that was followed by a chorus of 'no way's and 'prove it's from Ryan and Esposito, Castle was more than happy to oblige. He dove back into the pool and sank to the bottom of the deep end, the smile on his face growing as he watched his friends' faces growing in concern, then shock, then amazement as he sat under six feet of water, then took his time slowly crawling along the bottom of the pool before emerging in front of his friends in the shallow end.

Esposito and Ryan compared their watches. "Bro," Esposito commented, "you had to have been down there for at least ten minutes..."

"Yep...cool huh?" Castle replied with a smile.

Lanie though, couldn't help but notice the hoarseness in her friend's voice and how labored his breathing seemed. "Okay, Castle," she declared, "your new doctor wants to do a checkup. Get over here...and no tidal waves this time!"

While Ryan and Esposito mouthed to each other, "Tidal wave?" Castle simply hoisted himself up until he was sitting at the edge of the pool. Lanie sat down beside Castle, and lowered her legs into the water...a decision she immediately regretted. "Damn it, Castle!"

"What?" Castle nearly jumped at Lanie's loud exclamation beside him. "What'd I do?"

"I thought a rich guy like you would at least *heat* his pool! That water is *freezing*!"

Castle shrugged it off, "Really? I didn't notice..."

Lanie glared at her friend, grabbing his wrist with a little more force than she might have done otherwise. She entered the trance as her eyes closed, flying through his body as she checked for various potential problems. After a few seconds, Lanie came out of the trance and announced what she found and fixed. "Well, you didn't have hypothermia, which surprises the hell outta me considering how freakin' cold that water was...anyway, your throat and your lungs did show a little bit of scarring that I fixed."

"What would the scarring be from?" Alexis asked, concerned.

"My guess," replied Lanie, "would be the chlorine in the pool water. Can we try something?"

Castle nodded. "Sure, what?"

"I'd like to try watching your lungs while you're under," Lanie replied.

"Okay," Castle shrugged. He crossed his legs so he could sit Indian-style on the bottom of the pool and raised his arm over his head when he switched over to breathing water.

Lanie positioned herself so she could grab Castle's wrist without having to actually go in the pool. She entered a trance and came out quickly, knowing exactly what she had been looking for. Lanie then yanked on her friend's hand to encourage him to come up and join them.

Alexis turned to her friend, who seemed to be processing what she had seen. "Lanie?"

It was only at that point that Lanie turned to Castle with a smile. "Rick, I need you to promise me one thing."

Castle frowned at his friend, "What?"

"Don't *ever* go to another doctor without at least coming to me first. If, God forbid, anybody but me ever saw you pull that off, you would end up in some top secret government facility before you could say conspiracy theory."

"What did you see?" asked Alexis, her curiosity growing by the second.

Lanie described what she saw. "Apparently, whatever happened to us tweaked your lungs to be able to dual process: air when you're up here with the rest of us and then pulling the oxygen out of water when you're under. Instead of exhaling carbon dioxide underwater, I *think* you're actually exhaling liquid hydrogen...anyway, I was right on one thing. The chlorine does scar your lungs when you breathe in too much pool water. Whatever this process is, your lungs don't take too kindly to the harsher chemicals."

"Your prescription, doctor?" asked Castle with a sly smile.

"Don't breathe too much pool water. And if Beckett ever asks you to dive the East River see me *immediately* afterwards," Lanie replied sternly.

Castle replied with a chuckle, "You got it, Doc." He then turned to his daughter and asked, "Where to now, Alexis?"

Alexis thought for a moment before responding. "A couple of questions came up for me during the pool test. How would you feel about repeating the test in the ocean?"

Her father didn't need to be asked twice; he simply took off running toward the beach. Lanie watched Castle, her eyes getting wider the closer he got to the water. She turned to Alexis and asked, "That ocean water is going to make your pool water feel like a hot tub in comparison. Are you *sure* your dad shouldn't be heading inside to get a wetsuit?"

Alexis nodded. "That's the first reason I wanted him to try an ocean swim. When we were freezing our butts off after he hit us with that pool wave, how cold did he look?"

"He didn't," Lanie replied, catching on. "And he didn't look cold in that ice water pool of yours either."

"Exactly," said Alexis. "I think part of being able to master the elements might mean being able to control the temperature of what's around him: air, water, whatever. And I think he's already doing it without realizing it. The other thing I was curious about was how his lungs would handle the salt of the ocean as opposed to the chlorine in the pool."

"A fair question," mused Lanie.

Beckett turned to Lanie and Alexis. "You guys need us for anything?"

"Not right now," shrugged Alexis. "Hey, how are things going with hide and seek?"

Ryan started grinning from ear to ear. "It's been a little more like tag then hide and seek, but other than that...fantastic."

Alexis was thrilled to see her new friend so happy after the talk they had had that morning. "In that case, you guys can keep going if you'd like. Kate, you'll hear me call you guys when lunch is ready?"

"No problem," Beckett replied. She then turned to Ryan and Esposito with an evil grin. "Boys," she purred, reloading the paintball marker in her hands, "you might want to start running now."

Ryan and Esposito didn't need to be told twice either. They took off at a full sprint, Esposito yelling, "Later, chica!" back to his girlfriend as he ran. Alexis noticed the smile that crossed her friend's face as she watched their three other friends run off. "Lanie, you and Detective Esposito...that's not a new thing, is it?"

Lanie shook her head. "We dated a while back. Broke up maybe...wow, almost a year ago now."

"Was it serious back then?"

"Let's just say there was a certain ring in his pocket when we broke up."

Alexis' eyes widened. "Ouch. That musta hurt."

"Yep. It was really awkward for a while, but we got past it. We did that whole friends with benefits thing after that."

"I sense an until coming..."

Lanie nodded. "Until your dad and Kate finally got together. When you see two people who care about each other as much as they do finally get the hell out of their own way, and it's *so* good, and they're *so* happy..."

Alexis completed the thought easily, fully sympathetic to the emotion behind it. "You start to want that for yourself."

"Yeah."

"Do you think you and Detective Esposito could have the kind of relationship that Kate and my dad have?"

"I think it's possible. I'm the one who kept getting in the way of it, not Javi."

Alexis was impressed that Lanie was so willing to admit that. "Why?"

"I was scared. You see what I do every day. You know what he does every day. It wasn't hard for me to think that one day...Hell, I might've lost him yesterday if it wasn't for." Lanie waved her hands around to punctuate her point, which caused Alexis' eyes to widen in surprise. Letting out a weary sigh, Lanie admitted, "Javi had major head and spinal damage from that fall. If I hadn't been there..."

"But you were."

"Yeah," Lanie noticed a collection of pebble by her feet and picked them up, throwing the rocks into the ocean one by one. "So last night, when Javi came to my room to check on me, I started to think about what we almost lost yesterday. What I was still going to lose if I let my fears keep getting in the way."

The two women went silent, listening to the sound of the waves rolling in and the pebbles in Lanie's hands being thrown into the ocean. Finally Alexis mused, "What is it with you and Kate and needing to have someone fall off a building before you can fall in love? I mean, it's not like the phrase is supposed to be taken *that* literally..."


	7. Chapter 7

Castle materialized in front of Lanie and Alexis instead of running up to them. When the two women regarded him curiously, Castle simply shrugged, "I got caught in a riptide! Instead of having to swim in from five miles out, I figured this would be easier."

Lanie rolled her eyes and grabbed Castle's wrist, slipping in and out of the healing trance almost effortlessly. "You were right, Lex. Castle, apparently salt water is no problem for you. How are you feeling?"

"Fine," Castle replied simply.

"You're not cold at *all*?" asked Alexis.

Castle thought briefly about Alexis' question, a smile of surprise crawling across his face as the realization hit him. "No, not a bit. I feel, well, like I did when I was in the water. Or when I was inside."

"You're going to need to pay a lot more attention to the weather reports from this point on, dad," Alexis agreed with a smile. "I think your powers are regulating the temperature around you so it's always comfortable."

"Really? Wow..." Castle thought about how much he and Kate had suffered when they got stuck in that freezer, and couldn't help but smile when he realized that was never going to happen again. "So what's next?"

"Lunch," Lanie declared simply. "I don't know about you, but I'm *starving*."

"Yeah, I'm pretty hungry myself. How about we go back to the house and eat?" asked Alexis.

Castle agreed, "sure."

The trio met up with Ryan, Esposito and Beckett on their way back to the house. Everyone responded happily to the suggestion of food...practically groaning as the smell of freshly baked pizza filled their senses when they entered the house. Beckett even opened her sense of smell up as much as she dared to enjoy the aromas in her own unique way.

Alexis gasped in surprise as she recognized the unique smell immediately. Turning to her father, she exclaimed, "Dad, Grimaldi's?"

Castle beamed with fatherly pride as he nodded. "A thank you for everything you've done for us."

The group dug into the pizzas with enthusiasm, entertaining each other with stories of swimming pool tsunamis and how many local deer were now sporting giant splotches of neon green paint. As the group finished, Castle and Beckett got up to start clearing the table when Alexis stopped them. Castle turned toward his daughter in confusion. "Honey, what is it?"

"Dad, I don't think you should clear the table. At least, not like *that*."

The look on Alexis' face was one Castle was rapidly growing to hate. "Well, what would you suggest?" he asked, tapping his thumb and fingers together to indicate a 'blinking' motion. "That?"

Alexis shook her head. "Dad, you've got a lot of powers, and they're all *really* new. Everybody else's abilities, while amazing in and of themselves, are all pretty specific. I just think that in private moments it would be really good for you to try to come up with as many new ways to practice as possible."

"You've got something in mind, I take it?"

Alexis took a sip of her soda before replying. "You're familiar with the physics of why planes fly, right dad?"

"Yeah...?"

"Well...?"

It took a minute for Castle to connect the dots, but when he did, he motioned for Beckett to sit down. Clearing his mind in order to focus his mental energy on the task at hand, Castle pictured everything that he wanted to move surrounded by giant soap bubbles that he could control with a thought. The table's contents began to float gently back to the kitchen-dishes to the sink, food to the garbage.

As the last plate settled gently in the kitchen sink, Castle let out the breath he hadn't realized he was holding, only to look up and discover that his friends were applauding him.

"Bro, *that* was fun to watch," Esposito commented.

"Thanks," responded Castle, slightly confused, "I think."

Beckett turned to their young 'personal trainer'. "So, what do you have in mind for this afternoon, Alexis?"

The sight of the three cops at the table inspired Alexis. Consciously trying to avoid her father's gaze, Alexis tapped a finger to her temple to show that she wanted to have a private 'conversation' with Ryan. She then asked him, _Kevin, do you have your gun with you?_

Ryan replied, _It's upstairs. Why?_

Alexis' wicked grin was starting to worry Castle. A lot. But she ignored her father and asked Ryan, _Can you go get it and meet me in the basement?_ Finally she turned to her father and said, "Everybody, meet me in the basement."

* * *

Once in the basement, Castle realized the fear he felt before the water breathing test was absolutely *nothing* compared to the fear he was currently feeling. His voice starting to shake from the panic, he asked his daughter, "Alexis? What's your plan here?"

Alexis rolled her eyes in a melodramatic show of teenage bemusement. "Da-ad," she teased, "would you please just trust me?"

Ryan arrived, and Alexis started to set up her latest experiment. "Okay, Dad, stand by the back wall. Lanie, if you, Detective Esposito and Kate could stand over there," motioning to the left of the basement stairs, "that would be great. Lanie, be prepared to move in a hurry." Finally, turning to Ryan, she drew in a deep breath to steady her nerves. _Time to do the thing that you fear the most..._"Kevin, I'd like you to shoot my father."

Every person in the room erupted in shock and confusion almost immediately. It took almost a full minute of the 'grown-ups' talking over each other trying to talk Alexis out of having her father murdered before she was even able to attempt to get control of the room again. Shushing the group, Alexis asked, "Can I *please* get a chance to explain my plan here?"

The group quieted for the moment, waiting for an explanation. Alexis turned to her father. "Dad, one of the things you told me that you're most worried about is saying or thinking the wrong thing and having it come true, remember?"

When Castle nodded, Alexis continued, "I did some research on spell casting last night. The two most important components of a spell are intent and will: you have to know exactly what you want to have happen and you have to *really* want it to happen."

"So this is like the water breathing?" asked Castle. "Since self-preservation is instinctual..."

Alexis completed the thought to bring her point home. "Your nerves should actually *feed* the intent to create a shield."

"A *shield*?" asked Castle.

Alexis nodded. "Dad, think Star Trek. Remember, the legend called you the master of the elements: earth, air, water, and fire. And another way to think about fire is..."

Castle completed the thought and the concept immediately. "Energy!"

"Exactly!" agreed Alexis. "Now we can start with the paint balls and work our way up if you want, but I really think we need to get you comfortable with live rounds flying at you, and the sooner the better."

Castle took several deep breaths to bring his heartbeat down to something approximating normal. Maybe he was still on a high from being able to breathe underwater, but if his daughter believed this could work..."Okay," he agreed, "let's do this."

The rest of the group looked at him in shock. Ryan was starting to shake. "Are you *sure* about this, Castle?"

"Do it before I change my mind."

Alexis turned to mentally instructing Ryan because she wasn't sure she could actually say the words. _Okay, aim for his legs, that'll probably be easier for Lanie to repair. And for God's sake don't shoot him in the head._

Convinced that he was about to make the biggest mistake of his life, Ryan took his gun out of the back of his pants, released the safety, aimed for his friend and pulled the trigger.

No one but Castle anticipated the flash of energy that surrounded Castle's leg at the spot where the bullet would have made its impact. Ryan stared at Castle, shocked that the man was still standing. Thinking that he might have missed, Ryan fired again. And again. And again. Eventually, Ryan emptied his clip trying to put a bullet into Richard Castle and not a single one made it to its target. The shield worked every time.

Even with everything that had happened to them over the previous 48 hours, for the first time, every member of the group was truly rendered speechless.

Castle was ecstatic. His mind started to race with the possibilities of what he might be able to do.

Alexis watched her father, unable to stop the laughter bubbling up in her own heart as he paced the room with a growing level of childlike joy. Finally she realized that this was an opportunity to make an important point. Crossing the room, she blocked the path of his pacing, forcibly stopping Castle by grabbing his hands at the wrists. "Dad!" she broke into his thoughts. When she got Castle's attention, she asked him, "how many ideas have gone through your head in the past ten seconds?" Castle thought for a bit, then his smile widened further as he realized the point Alexis was about to make. "Dad, how many of them have come true?"

"None," Castle replied.

"That's why intent and will are the important things here, dad. If you don't *really* want it to happen, it won't happen. There are a few limits I found in the legend, but that's the big one."

"What are the other limits?" asked Kate.

"The first one," replied Alexis, "is that you can't affect the free will of others. Kevin might be able to eventually," she received a wide-eyed expression of surprise from Ryan as she continued, "but that's only a theory and will take a *lot* of practice. Plus, I have one request of my own. This popping in and out of places is cool, but it's also crazy dangerous. I mean, what if you don't know what's on the other side? You could end up inside a wall, or worse. And if there's anybody on the other side.."

Castle nodded, remembering the awkward conversation when they first arrived. "Then I risk exposure and God knows what else. Okay, no more of that unless it's a dire emergency. What else?"

Her expression turning serious, Alexis then warned the group, "The most important limit, though, is that you have no control over life and death. If someone dies, that's it. At the end of the legend, the wizard buries his wife, who is murdered before he gets a chance to save her. So please dad, *please* be careful."

Castle slipped his wrists out from his daughter's hands to gather her up in an embrace. Kissing the top of her head, Castle declared, "I promise, Lex, I'll be careful."

"Thank you," Alexis responded gratefully.

* * *

Alexis directed the group to move back outside. "So who is this a test for, Alexis?" asked Beckett, curious.

"We're still testing my dad, but I'm going to need everyone's help for this." Alexis replied as she checked to make sure the paintball marker was correctly loaded. She then turned back to her father. "Dad, I'm thrilled that the shield worked the first time. But I know you. You'd never forgive yourself if anybody else got hurt while you protected yourself. So the next thing I want you to practice is how to project the shield onto someone else." Turning back to the group, she asked, "Anyone want to go first?"

Taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, Beckett decided to volunteer first. "I'll do it, but I think we should use live rounds."

Castle turned to his girlfriend, stunned. "Are you *sure* about this, Kate? You definitely don't have to do this with live..."

"I *want* to do this, Castle," insisted Beckett. "Part of me has lived in fear ever since my shooting, you know that. If I can stare down the barrel of that gun and come out unscathed, a huge part of that fear just might get put away for good."

"But Kate..."

"Castle!" Beckett stopped his protestations with a finger to his lips and a look of fierce determination. "You can do this. I have faith in you."

As Castle finally relented, Alexis was able to voice her own problem with the idea. "Kate, the reason we went to the basement the first time was that I was nervous that someone would hear the gunshot."

"Now *that* is a problem I can solve," Castle told them with a smile. He held up his right hand to show a newly created silencer. Esposito ran inside the house, got his own weapon, then took the silencer out of Castle's hand and attached it to his weapon. Castle turned his attention back to his girlfriend. "You're sure about this, Kate?"

Beckett nodded. As she watched her boyfriend back away, Beckett started to look around her and lightly run her nails up and down her arms. "Kate?" asked Alexis, "Is everything okay?"

"There's this low hum in the background of everything I'm hearing. And my skin, it's just started to...itch."

Castle seemed to be connecting dots in his mind. "How long?"

"Less than a minute, maybe? It just happened."

Castle smiled as the pieces fit together. "I think you're feeling the shield. I think of it as right on the skin to free up as much ability to move around as possible. And I just started projecting it."

"Then I guess we're ready, then."

Esposito shifted his weapon into position, took aim at Beckett's leg, and fired.

*PING*

The bullet ricocheted harmlessly off the shield, leaving a trail of dirt behind as it buried itself deep into the ground. Beckett glowed with joy and satisfaction, looking like a three-ton weight had just been lifted off her shoulders.

Castle was also smiling...mostly out of relief. He turned to Ryan and Esposito. "Okay, which one of you boys wants to get shot at, and which one wants to do the shooting?"

* * *

**Would love to get some comments, especially if you are new to the "Four Winds" series. :-) One more chapter of Hamptons testing and then I unleash them on an unsuspecting New York public...hehehe...**


	8. Chapter 8

"Well Lanie was right, Kate. That was fantastic," Alexis commented gratefully, slurping up the remnants of her soup.

"Thanks," Beckett told her, taking a sip of her wine.

Alexis asked, "Did your enhanced sense of smell change how you cooked?"

"Some," shrugged Beckett. "Mostly it made it harder."

"Really?" Lanie asked, "How so?"

Beckett replied, "It was hard not to want to correct the seasonings a hundred times."

Ryan chuckled, remembering Beckett's first reaction to the glass of 'salt' water. "I'll bet."

"Well I'm just glad you figured out when to stop and let us eat," Alexis enthused. She put down her bowl and chopsticks and pushed away from the table slightly, sitting back to watch the relaxed group sitting around the table with her.

Castle noticed the contemplative look on his daughter's face. "What's on your mind, Alexis?"

"I just want to thank you guys for trusting me enough to let me help you with all of this."

Beckett leveled a teasing glare at her boyfriend as she told Alexis, "Well, after we barged in on you, you had about as much choice in this whole thing as we have." Turning to face Alexis, Beckett then admitted, "Although I doubt we would have gotten this far this fast without your help." Five heads nodded in agreement.

"Thanks," Alexis replied with a blushing half-smile. "So when do you guys think you want to head back to the city? I mean, it's not like you have to deal with the traffic on 27 or anything..."

The response was quiet, but unified and immediate. Everyone spoke in near-unison. "Tomorrow."

Beckett was the first one to give her reason to the group. "If we leave after breakfast, it'll give me a day to get used to being in Manhattan again. The city can be loud even on a good day..."

Ryan chimed in, "I hear ya. Don't get me wrong, Castle, Alexis...while it's been great being out here, we live in a city of eight million people. I *have* to learn how to get used to being around that many minds at once. Might as well get into it sooner rather than later." Beckett nodded in agreement.

"So everyone's agreed?" asked Castle. "We'll leave first thing in the morning?" Four heads around the table nodded.

"Okay then," declared Alexis, "I have one more idea for a test." The group looked to her, curious as to what she had in mind. "I was thinking we should play Truth or Dare."

"The slumber party game?" asked Lanie. "How is that a test?"

"I've got an idea," Esposito suggested. "This is a test for me, isn't it?"

Alexis nodded, then asked her father, "Dad, can you clear the table?" As the dinner plates and leftover food disappeared, Alexis explained to the group, "This will be a practice test for Detective Esposito...but only partially." She pulled out a quarter. "Heads will be truth, tails will be dare. Everyone will take turns flipping the coin. If it lands on heads, *you* get to ask Detective Esposito a personal question you know he doesn't know the answer to. He then has to answer it."

"And tails?" asked Ryan.

"Tails is dare," Alexis replied simply. "The only rule is that the dare has to be directly related to your new abilities."

Castle smiled shamelessly. "I'm in." Ryan nodded in agreement as well.

Beckett and Lanie rolled their eyes, then reluctantly consented. Lanie got up to go to the kitchen, announcing to the group, "Okay, I'll do it, but I'm sure I'm going to need a lot more alcohol..."

Ryan and Beckett chimed in quickly, "Get me one, too!"

Alexis pulled a quarter out of a nearby change jar while the rest of the group settled in with their beverages of choice. Finally, once everyone was comfortable, Alexis asked them, "So who wants to start?"

Lanie, having been the first to nervously down her beer in one long chug, spoke up first. "I'll do it."

Alexis tossed the quarter in the air and caught it before it hit the ground. Flipping the quarter onto the back of her hand without seeing it, she lifted her top hand off of the bottom one. "Tails. I have an idea for a dare. Up for it?"

The beer had gone straight to Lanie's head, making her feel a little light-headed and buzzed. "Sure, Lex. Watcha got in mind?"

"I've always wondered what I would look like as a blond."

The buzz blocked any hesitation Lanie might have had with the idea. The healed walked through the process in her head, finding it simpler than she would have thought...in theory. She motioned for Alexis to come closer to her.

Alexis obliged, getting up from her chair and going around the table to stand in front of Lanie. Lanie took the younger girl's hand and fell quickly into the trance, mentally pulling herself into Alexis' scalp. The group watched as Alexis' hair bleached white from root to tip, then gently grew more and more yellow until it reached a perfect shade of platinum blonde. She opened her eyes as Lanie pulled out of the trance, smiling as she reviewed her handiwork. "So how do I look?" asked Alexis.

"See for yourself," Lanie replied, sharing Alexis' smile.

Alexis ran straight for the nearest mirror. She smiled as she ran her fingers through her hair, amazed at the silky texture of her hair and the natural look of the color. "Wow...my hair is so soft..." The girl started to frown, however, as she took in the full effect of the color change on her appearance. "Still, I don't think I look that great as a blond. Can you change it back?"

"Sure," Lanie replied. She crossed to the mirror and grabbed Alexis' hand, not even needing to close her eyes to know what she was doing. Lanie watched with growing satisfaction as Alexis' hair shifted back from blond to its original fiery red, squeezing the girl's hand when she was done.

Alexis squeezed Lanie's hand in return, relieved as her appearance returned to normal. "Thanks, Lanie." Alexis returned her attention to the rest of the group. "So who's next?"

Ryan finished his beer with one long swallow. "I'll give it a shot, Lex."

Alexis tossed the quarter in the air and caught it before it hit the ground. Flipping the quarter onto the back of her hand without seeing it, she lifted her top hand off of the bottom one. "Heads."

Taking a deep breath, Ryan focused his attention on his partner. He asked Esposito, "What's the closest I've ever come to getting arrested?"

Esposito closed his eyes. "You and Jenny were at a carnival, and you decided to ride the ferris wheel..." Suddenly, his expression darkened, contorted into a mask of anger and embarrassment. "Uh, guys," Esposito said to no one in particular, "I'm gonna go for a run. I'll...I'll see you later."

He was out the door before any of the other five members of the group had the chance to object. Alexis was first out the door...but Esposito was barely a dot on the horizon by the time the rest of the group caught up to her on the beach. Ryan stopped his young friend with a hand on her shoulder. "It was my memory, Lex. I'll go."

"No!" insisted Alexis forcefully. "It was *my* test. *I* need to be the one to talk to him, Kevin. Please...?"

The pleading, guilt-ridden tone in Alexis' voice was more than Castle could stand. He grabbed his daughter by the wrist and disappeared.

Alexis and her father reappeared at the edge of a small forest clearing. Castle spotted his friend first, seated on the beach about fifty feet ahead of them. A gentle hand on Castle's arm moved his attention back to his first priority. "You're sure you want to be the one to talk to him about this, Alexis?"

Alexis nodded. "I'm only going to keep being helpful to you guys if I can understand what I do wrong when I do something wrong and fix it." She wrapped her arms around her father's waist and hugged him gratefully. "But thank you for trusting me to do this."

"Hey, better you than me," Castle replied with a chuckle. "Do you have your phone with you?"

"Yeah," replied Alexis, "I'll call you when we're done?"

"Okay," Castle replied with a smile as he separated from his daughter's embrace. "Good luck," he added, before disappearing in a blink.

Alexis climbed the sand dune and crossed down the hill to the place where the detective was watching the sunset. He spoke before she had a chance to say anything. "I don't want to talk about it, Alexis."

"Was it that bad, Detective?" Alexis sat down on the beach cross legged, facing Esposito as he faced the sunset.

"You have no idea," Esposito replied. Out of the corner of his eye, Esposito realized that the girl had settled in and would not be leaving his side any time soon. _So either I can take off running again, or..._ "Before tonight, when I...saw something, I saw it in third person. Like I was just there, observing, even if I was there in the memory. Tonight, though..." His voice trailed off as his discomfort with the memory was sparked anew.

Alexis prodded, "Go on."

Esposito sighed, knowing he wasn't going to get out of this without facing it head on. "Tonight, I saw Ryan's memory through his eyes. The way *he* lived it."

"Why is that that much different?" asked Alexis, confused.

Esposito stated matter-of-factly, "Apparently Ryan's close call was for...public lewdness on the Ferris Wheel."

It took Alexis a moment to understand what Esposito was talking about. Her eyes widened as she understood what he had seen...and the *implications* of it. "Wow. I'm starting to get why you left."

"Yeah," agreed Esposito. "I have to keep reminding myself that I did *not* just sleep with my best friend's wife."

"I am *so* sorry about this, detective," Alexis apologized. "I had no idea..."

Esposito grimaced, but the expression cleared almost as quickly as it had formed. "Yeah, well...it's trial and error for all of us right now, isn't it?" The silence between them was easily filled by the late evening tide as the detective allowed himself to get lost in his own thoughts. Finally, Esposito let himself speak his mind with a weary sigh. "God, it was bad enough when I thought I was just going to be a peeping Tom into other people's lives. After tonight, seeing what I saw, the way I saw it...I dunno, maybe *I* should be the one who stays away from the rest of the world."

"Detective..."

Esposito chuckled bitterly. "Alexis, please...I've already pulled memories out of your head. If you stick around long enough I'll probably end up pulling out a thousand more. The least I can do in return is let you call me by my first name. Javier."

"Javier," Alexis repeated, clearly uncomfortable with the idea. "Can I ask you a question?" When Esposito only shrugged, Alexis took a deep breath and continued, "Lanie once told me that you were in Special Forces. Is that true?" As Esposito nodded, Alexis continued, "I'm guessing that you've seen things that are a lot more disturbing than anything you've seen in a vision up to this point. True?"

"Yeah..." Esposito agreed warily, knowing the girl was trying to make a point, but failing to see what it was.

Alexis pressed on with her questioning. "How do you deal with the things you saw in the Army?"

"War is war," Esposito tried to explain with a shrug. "Now that I'm away from that life, I...keep most of the memories in the back of my mind. Most of the time I just don't think about it."

"Even as a cop? When people are shooting at you?"

Esposito nodded. "Different circumstances, different weapons...it's kind of hard to explain."

"What's been going through your mind at the times that you've had your visions?"

Esposito considered the question carefully. "I had a goal in mind. Either it was to answer a particular question or help get a point across...usually the point that we aren't crazy and that all this, for better or worse, is real."

"And the...information you got about Kevin tonight, what will you do with it?"

Esposito's reply was firm, steely with conviction. "Nothing. After tonight I'll take that memory to my grave...and hopefully never think about it again."

"Javier, why are the memories that you're getting from someone else any different than the memories you have from your own experiences?"

"I..." Esposito's train of thought stopped cold as he considered Alexis' question.

Alexis pressed on. "If you can set aside all your memories of war so you can live a normal life, and set aside the memories of this crazy night so you can have a good relationship with your partner, then how can it be any harder to do the same thing with the next memory you have...whether it's yours or someone else's?"

"I see your point, Alexis, I do," Esposito conceded. "It still doesn't make me any more comfortable with the idea of stealing stuff out of people's minds."

"You're not stealing," Alexis countered. "Stealing would mean that you take the memory from the person and it's gone from their mind. And I still remember that conversation you saw me having back in the city." Alexis started thinking out loud, trying to form her argument even as she told it to Esposito. "So think of it...think of it as being a corroborating witness. Only now you don't have to worry about filtering a witness' testimony through what they think might be important."

Esposito's next question flew out of his mouth before he thought about it. "But what about outside of work, Alexis? I don't know if I want to know so much about my friends if it's stuff they wouldn't want to tell me..."

"Outside of tonight, have you had a vision about something that personal?" Alexis countered. When Esposito suddenly became unable to look her in the eye, Alexis knew she needed to press further. "You have, haven't you? What was it about?"

Esposito winced when he realized where his big mouth had gotten him. He turned to look at Alexis and quickly understood that she was not going to give up until he answered her. Esposito sighed, finally admitting, "Lanie."

"Past or future?"

"Future."

Alexis mused, "That's why you guys got back together, isn't it?" Esposito nodded. "What did you see?"

"You won't tell her?" Alexis shook her head. "Swear it."

"I swear. What did you see?"

"Our wedding."

Alexis smiled. "Javier, this just proves my point. Every time you've had a vision you've had a goal in mind. Even with Lanie, you needed to know how it was going to turn out before you risked your heart again."

"And now I know."

"And now you know. Look, if there's one thing that I've seen over the past couple of days, it's that each of you has the ability you have because you're the person who can best handle that ability and *everything* that goes with it. You can do this."

* * *

**Hi gang! Sorry it took so long to get this posted. Had family in from out-of-state for the annual staycation. While I absolutely *love* my family and had a great time, it left me with ten days of very, *very* little time to write. The good news, though, is that now that everyone's gone and the house is starting to settle down again I should be posting updates a lot faster. However, that speed will be helped greatly by getting lots of comments on this chapter. :-D**


	9. Chapter 9

"Dad, are you sure you don't want me to come back with you?"

Castle kissed his daughter on the top of her fiery red head as they embraced. "We've imposed on you long enough, honey. The last thing I want to do is be the reason you flunk your first college midterms. God knows I'm paying enough for you to take them..."

Alexis nodded into his chest with a chuckle. "Okay dad, I'll stay and study. But I'll be calling you every chance I get!" Releasing from her father's grasp, she steadied herself to say goodbye to friends new and old.

She turned first to Esposito, who finally admitted to her with a smile and a wink, "You know, last night...you were right...kid."

"About what?" Alexis asked innocently, before finally breaking out into a matching smile. She embraced the man in front of her warmly. "Just remember what we talked about if things get too...personal again." As Esposito nodded, Alexis turned to her other new friend. "You ready for Manhattan, Kevin?"

Ryan nodded, the slight nervousness still evident in his demeanor. "I think so. I wouldn't have had a prayer without you, you know."

"I still think you're giving me too much credit, but thanks all the same. Oh, by the way, you might want to try a solo button on your remote: it would help you to turn on just one person's thoughts and turn off all the others in a hurry. And practice every chance you get, okay? The more you practice..."

"The faster I'll get used to it, I know, I know." Ryan couldn't help but laugh at how Alexis was continuing to try to help him even after she tried to blow off the importance of the help she had *already* given him. He pulled Alexis into a warm hug. "Thank you for everything."

Alexis nodded. "Promise you'll call me if you have *any* problems..." Ryan nodded as Alexis pulled away to give quick hugs to the two women. Alexis asked both of them, "Take care of my dad, okay?" As Beckett and Lanie nodded, Alexis backed away.

Rearranging themselves in a circle facing each other, the members of the group took one last look around their peaceful surroundings, then Castle transported them back to the loft in a blink.

* * *

The return to the loft was disorienting, but not terribly jarring...for all the members of the group save two. Ryan and Beckett staggered slowly to the couch, their newly minted controls struggling to hold under the increased sensory workload. Still, it took each of them less than a minute to make the necessary adjustments. Once the weakness had passed, Ryan and Beckett exchanged smiles and high fives, not needing words to know that they had both overcome a major hurdle in the challenge of living with their new abilities.

Castle watched the internal battle of both his friends, recognizing the pain they were both in, frustrated that he couldn't help them through it-yet also fully aware that this was something they each needed to do on their own. Once the worst of it subsided, he quietly asked the pair, "You guys ok?"

Beckett nodded, still looking a little weak but smiling nonetheless. "There was no way to tell how much my hearing was going to be affected from being back in the city until I got here. And our peculiar mode of transportation back probably didn't help." A flash of guilt crossed Castle's face, so Beckett quickly continued, "but I'm fine now. Just took a minute, is all."

Castle then turned briefly to Ryan, who nodded his in agreement. "When I was in the Hamptons, I worked on keeping what I was getting from you guys in the background of what I was hearing-like keeping the TV on for background noise in the house. Coming back was like someone taking that background noise and cranking it all the way up for a minute. But I'm good now."

"We're also several stories up," countered Castle, "What will happen when you guys get down to street level?"

"I'm just glad we came back early so I have a day to get acclimated," replied Ryan. "So unless you're planning to send me down to street level in something other than an elevator, I think I'll be able to adjust."

"Unfortunately, I can't let you take the elevator down," Castle deadpanned. "You'll just have to take the stairs."

Rolling his eyes at Castle's obvious teasing, Ryan got up from the couch, and grabbed his coat. "Well, unless any of you have any objections, I'm going to go home to my wife."

Esposito and Lanie soon followed Ryan's lead. "We should go, too," announced Esposito. "We'll see you guys on Monday?"

"Unless you call us first," replied Beckett.

As Castle ushered out his friends, he turned to his girlfriend with concern. "Are you *sure* you're okay?" he asked Beckett.

Beckett nodded. "I will be."

That was not the reassuring answer Castle was hoping for. "*Will* be, Kate?"

"I'm still in the one foot in front of the other stage, Rick. I mean let's be honest, two days ago my life was relatively normal. But I learned a lot from therapy. And I have you in my life now. That helps, too."

"Really? How?"

Kate pulled her boyfriend into an embrace. Planting gentle kisses on his neck, she purred, "Well, according to that legend, I supposedly have this enhanced sense of touch..."

Rick was fighting to be able to actually get words to come out of his mouth. "Touch, huh?"

Kate pulled her head back and nodded, letting her hands trace patterns up and down Rick's back. "Alexis never really found a good way for us to test this. I think she figured she could leave those particular tests up to you..."

Rick couldn't help but smile. "Well, I'm always up for aiding in the scientific process..."

* * *

Ryan closed the door to his apartment with a tired sigh. The walk home from Castle's loft felt like it had been the longest walk of his life: a gauntlet of other people's thoughts and emotions that left him an exhausted mess. He kept trying to push the 'off' button on his mental remote, but the extra strain on his mind kept his controls from working. He prayed for a moment's peace to pull himself together.

No such luck. As soon as the door closed Jenny greeted him cheerfully, "Hey babe! You're home early." The strain on Ryan's face was obvious. "Honey, are you okay?"

"I'll be fine," Ryan replied weakly. "I just need to lie down for a bit." He shuffled slowly into the bedroom, closed the door behind him, then drew the curtains closed. He laid down on the bed and closed his eyes, hoping against hope that reducing the input from his other senses would help. Finally, he decided there was no other option, and picked up the phone. "Hi Alexis."

Ryan could practically hear the girl's smile on the other end of the line. "Hi Kevin! Wow, you don't sound too great..."

"I'm starting to miss being out there already."

"Not as ready to be around all those people as you thought, huh?"

Kevin shook his head, even though the person on the other end wouldn't see it. "No, and the remote's not working either."

"Aw man, I'm sorry. You must be going crazy."

Wincing, Kevin agreed. "Can you walk me through it again?"

"Okay," replied Alexis, "Close your eyes and start by taking a few deep breaths..."

* * *

When Jenny heard her 'sleeping' husband on the phone, curiosity got the better of her. Putting an ear to the door, she listened in on his conversation.

"Alexis?" She heard her him say, "I'm starting to miss being out there already..."

_A girl? In the Hamptons? That he's *missing*?_

* * *

Monday dawned bright and clear for the citizens of New York City. Detective Kate Beckett, however, was too preoccupied to enjoy it. She walked into the bullpen of the 12th to find Ryan sitting at his desk, sipping his coffee and working on paperwork. Beckett could sympathize. "Morning, Ryan. In early, huh?"

Ryan replied, "Yeah, just trying to get caught up on some paperwork from the weekend." But in her head, Beckett heard the full explanation. _Plus, the weekend was much harder than I thought it would be, so I figured coming in earlier might help me to filter out people as they came in._

Beckett squeezed her friend's shoulder in sympathy. "Yeah, coming in early is good for that." She barely got the chance to put her stuff down at her desk when the call from dispatch came in. She answered the phone, "Beckett." Grabbing a pen and paper, Beckett wrote down the address and hung up the phone.

She looked up to find Ryan had just finished writing down an address as well. He sent her the address, and she nodded to acknowledge that the address she was given was the same one he was going to.

They both grabbed their coats and cell phones to call their partners as they walked right back out of the precinct doors.  
A double homicide was never a good way to start a Monday morning.

* * *

**Told ya I'd post fast. ;-D Truth is, this is a ****quickie, **mostly transitional chapter. The case will begin in Chapter 10-the game is now afoot! 


	10. Chapter 10

Castle met Beckett and Ryan at the entrance to the building. It did not escape Beckett's notice that Castle was carrying a tray with three cups of coffee as opposed to their customary pair. Castle handed her a vanilla latte, then handed Ryan a cup of black coffee without ceremony.

Ryan, though, heard Castle's unspoken communication. _Alexis called me. How's it going?_

_Better than yesterday, not that that's saying much. _Ryan replied with a slight shrug. _Thanks, though._

"Esposito and Lanie are already upstairs," Castle told the pair. "They'll fill you in when we get up there."

The elevator ride to the third floor was blessedly quick. As the doors opened, Beckett noticed a smell that was all too familiar. She tugged on her partner's arm, pulling him aside. "Castle, do you smell that?"

It briefly crossed Castle's mind that he might never be able to answer that question in the affirmative again. "What do you smell, Beckett?"

"Burning sulfur. The same smell I woke up to in your apartment on Friday."

Castle took note of Beckett's observations as Esposito met them at the door. "Okay, our victims are Gloria Cho and her daughter Jessica." As Beckett and Ryan walked the living room of the apartment as best they could, Esposito continued his summary. "The apartment is registered to a David Cho, probably the husband. He's nowhere to be found. There's also a son, neighbors told me his name is Matthew. He apparently witnessed what happened to his mom and sister."

Beckett noticed that the kids' bedroom had been cordoned off. "Has someone taken his statement?"

"Uh," Esposito hesitated, "not exactly. According to the uniforms, Matthew's been locked away for our protection. Bellvue's been called."

Standing in the doorframe, Castle turned to Esposito, confused. "Why?"

Esposito could only shrug. "They wouldn't tell me. But they were both freaked out by even the mention of the kid's name."

Beckett turned her attention to the medical examiner, who had been quietly attending to the two bodies as her boyfriend updated the group. The detective knelt down and asked her friend, "So Lanie, what do we got?"

"This one's a doozy. Mom had her neck broken, obviously." Lanie motioned to the adult's body which had head and torso going in opposite directions. "But, the daughter died from blood loss. Someone or something ripped out a good chunk of her neck with its teeth."

The damage to the daughter's body was apparently severe enough that someone had requested a sheet, so Lanie had to kneel down and lift up the sheet to show Beckett the extent of the damage. Standing behind Beckett, Ryan and Castle recoiled from the gruesomeness of what they were seeing. "Whoa," commented Castle, "no wonder the kid went crazy. To see your sister like that..."

"Let us know what you get off the bite marks?" asked Beckett. Lanie nodded in agreement.

The team moved on to the master bedroom. "Wow," marveled Castle, "guess we know how the killer got in..."

"From the third floor?" asked Esposito. "The killer climbed up the side of the building, planted explosives, and blew this giant hole in the wall *just* to avoid going in the front door?"

"I don't think our killer planted explosives," Beckett mused idly. "Does this look familiar to anyone else?" Ryan nodded.

This caused Esposito to take a second look at the scene around him. With a gasp, he made the connection the others had made before him. "The window at the loft looked just like this..." he whispered. The others nodded with a solemn level of respect.

Beckett turned to her junior detectives, hoping her meaning was clear. "Esposito, any 'thoughts'?"

Esposito shook his head. "Sorry, boss. I got nothin'."

Beckett left the master bedroom and crossed the living room quickly. Her attention was totally focused on the locked room and the witness that was behind its door. She asked the two men guarding the door, "I'd like to see what state the witness is in, maybe see if I can talk to him?"

To her surprise, the uniforms vigorously shook their heads. The fear on their faces was evident. One of the men warned Beckett, "Detective, I'm sorry, but that kid's like a wild dog in there. He even tried to bite two of the other men. I can't let you go in there."

Beckett left the two uniforms and turned back to Ryan. "Considering what we saw in the other room," she told him, "I'm wondering if we can find out what the kid saw through...unconventional methods?"

"Because the kid can't talk?" replied Ryan. Beckett nodded, and Ryan understood her meaning immediately. Trying to recall everything he could from the Hamptons, Ryan crossed the room to talk to the uniforms, hoping that peace was radiating from every pore of his being.

Sure enough, the fear seemed to ease off the two men before Ryan got within five feet of them. Ryan couldn't help but smile a little at the result. He could swear he even heard a chuckle from Lanie behind him as she continued her work with the bodies.

"Gentlemen," Ryan quietly asked the uniforms, "are you *sure* we can't get in there?"

The two men looked at each other, then at the door they were guarding. With their state of panic gone, they seemed to be more willing to reconsider the idea. Nevertheless, they were still extremely hesitant. "Detective..."

"I'm sure that Detective Beckett is willing to take full responsibility if anything should happen to me." Ryan interjected.

When Beckett nodded her consent behind Ryan, the two uniforms relented. One of the men opened the door with a sigh of resignation. "Your funeral, detective."

Ryan stood in the doorway and looked at the boy. The uniforms hadn't been far off in their description of Matthew Cho's behavior. His hair wild from lack of grooming, the boy had jumped up on his bed and was crouched in a corner. Matthew was panting, drooling and snarling in a way that reinforced the wild dog description. The detective crossed the room in as submissive a posture he could think of, focusing as much on radiating peace as he possibly could.

Matthew never moved; he simply stared wild-eyed at Ryan. Ryan reached out with his mind in an attempt to communicate. Surprised at his results, Ryan called for backup. "Beckett! Esposito! Can you come in here, please?"

Beckett entered the room first. Quietly, she asked, "Ryan? What's going on? What'd he tell you?"

As Ryan watched his partner enter the room, he quietly told both of the detectives, "It's not what he told me, it's what he didn't tell me. Guys, I can't get in. I can't really explain it, but there's something blocking me. I can't reach him."

"And it's not-?" asked Esposito.

_I can get through to you guys just fine, _replied Ryan in his partner's mind. "But with him, it's like I'm running into a wall."

Esposito noticed that while the boy was definitely not well, he was also not as feral as the uniforms had said he was...a change that he knew he could only credit to his partner. "While you've got him calmed down," asked Esposito, "mind if I take a crack at it?"

Ryan moved slightly to his left to allow Esposito access to their witness while still keeping Matthew calm. It took only the briefest of touches before a visibly shaken Esposito declared, "Okay, I got what we need. Let's let the kid get some help."

"Are you sure-?" asked Beckett.

"Trust me," the younger detective replied, "that is *not* an experience I care to repeat."

"In that case," Beckett concluded, watching her friend with concern, "let's go back to the precinct, grab a conference room and see what we have."

The two uniformed officers watched their colleagues leave the bedroom in complete bewilderment. Officer Brian McMurphy took his hand away from his radio for the first time since the team of detectives had entered the room to take a look at their 'witness'.

It floored the veteran officer to realize that the kid had not only seemed to have calmed down, but that apparently the detectives were actually able to get a usable statement from the boy. Turning to his partner, he asked, "Hey Jerry?"

"Yeah Murph?"

"How d'you think they got anything outta the kid?"

Jerry shrugged. "Beats the hell outta me, Murph. You think the kid's better?"

"No clue," Brian acknowledged. "Should we check?"

"Might as well."

Cautiously, Brian opened the door a crack, just enough to make eye contact with the boy...then slammed the door shut when the kid crossed the room in an instant and attacked him. Brian let his heart rate return to something approaching normal, thanking all his lucky stars that he had gotten that door closed in time. _How the hell did they get anything out of *that*?_

After over twenty years on the force, Brian had learned long ago that sometimes there were questions you were better off not knowing the answer to.

This, Brian quickly decided, was one of those questions.

* * *

Seeing Castle, Beckett, Ryan and Esposito sitting around the conference table was nothing unusual to the those in homicide. If those other detectives had been able to listen to the conversation the four were having, though, they probably would have been stunned to hear a conversation that was anything but usual. "So, Esposito, what did you see?" asked Beckett.

"Apparently, we weren't the only one to have a ball of lightning crash through the window on Thursday night."

"We got that from the evidence in the master bedroom," commented Beckett, "but none of us ended up with a broken neck."

"The difference," Esposito countered, "is that someone did come into the apartment riding this particular bolt of lightning."

That was news to everyone. "Can you identify this guy? Enough for us to get an artist's sketch?" asked Ryan.

Esposito rolled his eyes at his partner's questions. "If you can come up with a good excuse for *me* to be the one to give a description to the artist and have it not get back to *Gates*, I'll go. But I doubt it would do any good anyway."

"Why not?" asked Castle.

"This guy's a wizard, Castle, like you. Although apparently he's been issued the uniform: grey robe, long staff with a silver dragon on top. David Cho was the first one to investigate the broken window, which was his mistake. The wizard stabbed him with his staff. Trouble was, the guy didn't die-he kinda...changed."

"Changed? How?" asked Ryan.

"Like a version of that kid on steroids. The kids found him first. Matthew got away, but the girl...God...let's just say Cho was the cause for what we saw. He *ate* her."

Everyone in the room shuddered, not wanting to think about dying in that kind of terrible way. Beckett asked, "And the mother? Did he snap her neck?"

Esposito nodded. "The wizard had a weird reaction to it, though...like he was mad at himself for what Cho did. The wizard found Matthew himself and stabbed him, I guess hoping the kid would give him the response he was looking for."

"Did he?" asked Castle.

"Well, you saw the kid. Apparently after Matthew changed he ran into that bedroom. When the wizard tried to coax the kid to come out, Matthew tried to him. This ticked the wizard off enough that he just grabbed Cho and left. That's it."

"So our perp is a wizard who used a spell to force a guy to kill his wife and...eat his daughter," Beckett summarized. She pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes. The frustration with their current situation was evident on her face. "Anyone else getting a headache?"

Three hands went up in sympathy. Beckett continued, "This guy clearly wants something from his victims, otherwise he would have just killed Cho instead of turning him into...whatever he turned him into. But what?"

Ryan spoke so quietly only Beckett could hear him. "A zombie..."

"A zombie?" Beckett repeated, the tone of her voice clearly betraying her skepticism. She started to automatically state that there was no such thing as zombies...then remembered the circumstances of her audience and stopped herself.

"Think about it. The wizard had control over him as they left. He seemingly had no mental capacities except for pure rage. And he did eat flesh..." Ryan looked nauseated at the thought.

Beckett asked, "The why was he mad at himself when Cho attacked? If the wizard was looking for a slaughterfest, it would seem he got what he wanted..."

"But that wasn't what he wanted," Castle chimed in, the connections being made in his mind even as he spoke. When he noticed how he had the group's attention, Castle explained, "out of four people, he got one slave, one 'reject' and two corpses. If he's trying to create a zombie army that's a lousy return on investment. David Cho wasn't just violent, he was *too* violent. He wanted slaves who would multiply themselves, not line the streets with corpses. At least, not yet."

"So we can assume he's going to regroup and strike again, probably attacking more people next time?" asked Esposito.

Beckett nodded. "That would be my guess. The question is, where would he go?" A call from dispatch ended their conversation when Beckett answered the phone. "Beckett...I see. Tell the uniforms on the scene to consider them extremely dangerous. They are carriers of an deadly virus and anyone who touches the subjects should follow bio weapon protocols. We're on our way." Once Beckett hung up the phone, she told her team, "a diner has just been attacked. One dead, seventeen missing..."

"And?" asked Ryan.

"And two people in the same condition as Matthew Cho."


	11. Chapter 11

Castle watched as his partner walked the perimeter of the shiny silver diner car in solemn contemplation. She took in every broken window, every wind-blown curtain, every drop of blood on a level that he was only starting to understand. He could just barely make out the sounds of the crime scene inside: Lanie and her team going about their work on the body, Ryan and Esposito talking to the uniforms who were first on the scene. It was then that Castle remembered his partner could now hear those same conversations as if she were standing right next to the person who was speaking. He hated to interrupt her, but Castle also knew that if they didn't enter the diner soon, her behavior would start being labeled as 'eccentric'...and eventually, suspicious. Castle approached Beckett quietly, placing a hand on her shoulder to physically telegraph his intention to speak to her as quietly as he dared. "Beckett?"

Beckett dialed her senses back at her partner's touch. He looked at her with a teasing, but sincere expression. "Did you find anything? Or were you eavesdropping on conversations we could have just heard by going inside in the first place?"

"All the windows look like they were broken from the inside out," Beckett replied. "But there aren't any glass shards out here. Still, I don't think our guy surrounded the place with...zombies, at any rate."

"Think he might have come here directly from the Chos?" asked Castle.

Beckett could only shrug. "Don't know...maybe. The air around this place smells...strange."

"Strange how?"

"A little like ozone. You know, how it can smell sometimes after a rainstorm?"

Castle caught on immediately, and Beckett swore she could almost see him connecting the dots in his head. "Huh," Castle commented, "so that's what that was..." As Beckett watched him curiously, he continued, "No, I don't smell it like you do...but I can *feel* it."

"Feel what?"

"Residual energy. There's a ton of it. It's hanging around this place like a fog. I'm kind of surprised *you're* not feeling it, to be honest."

Beckett asked her partner, "Kind of feels suffocating and...itchy, all at the same time?" Castle nodded. "Yeah, I feel it. I was trying not to think about it..."

"I think our guy pulled a shield around this place that was so tight that no one could get out...at least until he got the slaves he wanted. As to how that shield looked or sounded to the outside world..." He could only shrug helplessly in response.

Beckett thought about her partner's observations. "You think that's why we didn't get more calls about the attack? And why no one, to our knowledge, escaped...even though there were clear ways to get out of there if someone was desperate enough?" Again, Castle nodded.

The detective walked through the door that Castle held open for her. It was impossible not to crunch on broken glass as the investigators moved through the small space...a sound that Beckett found unnerving. She gave her badge number to the uniform that met her at the door. "Where are the witnesses?"

"We used tasers on sticks to subdue them, as you ordered, detective." Sergeant Thompson replied, "then we dragged 'em each into separate bathrooms and posted guards."

"Thank you, Sergeant," said Beckett.

Beckett crossed through the diner to Lanie, who was directing her techs on the way to pack up what was left of the body behind the counter. The ME turned to her friend in a morbidly humorous mood. "Your guy must have worked up quite an appetite, Kate. There's not much left of this one."

"Did you get an ID?" asked Beckett.

"Off the medic alert bracelet, oddly enough. Kate Hargreaves, 23. She had the bracelet custom engraved with her name and phone number as well as her date of birth and primary condition...epilepsy."

Castle mused, "What about the Chos? Did the women have any neurological problems?"

Lanie turned to Castle, mildly impressed by his question. "Tourette's, actually. It ran through the whole family on the mother's side, according to the medical records. Why?"

Beckett started to wonder what crazy theory her partner could be coming up with, then forced herself to mentally switch gears as she remembered that her reality could now be described as its own crazy theory. "Just trying to catch any connections between the victims," Beckett commented to her friend. "Any estimate on time of death?"

"Not enough left of her to tell until I run more tests, sorry."

"Let me know whatever you find." Lanie nodded.

Beckett squeezed her friend's shoulder in a show of sympathy and support. The detective then crossed the length of the diner until she reached Ryan and Esposito, who were talking to Castle near a back booth. "So whatcha got for me?"

Ryan gave his boss what little information they had. "It seems like the diner was probably hit sometime between 2 and 3pm. Witnesses in the neighborhood remembered seeing normal lunch traffic around the building, then nothing until seeing the building in the condition it's in now sometime after 3."

"I think the blank spot might be the effects of the shield," suggested Castle. "Kind of like looping security camera footage. It would leave the place looking in its normal condition until our guy was long gone and took all of his victims with him."

"Makes sense," agreed Beckett. "Did anyone...'talk' to our witnesses yet?"

"I tried," Esposito replied, shifting in place uncomfortably. "but I can't get anything off them when they're unconscious."

Beckett's eyes widened just slightly in surprise. "Tasers don't usually knock people out..."

"But they weren't just hit with the energy from the taser," added Castle, thinking out loud. "Our suspect was throwing around massive amounts of energy in these attacks."

Ryan asked, "So it's like they were struck by lightning and *then* tasered?"

"I think so, yeah," Castle replied.

Ryan let out a low whistle. "Sounds like a miracle that they're even alive."

"But are they?" asked Castle. "I mean, if we're talking about true zombies here, then they would be the *walking dead*. So are they really dead, or are they alive and the other wizard's controls just didn't take?"

"I might be able to get the answer to that," added a new voice to the group. The group turned to find that the ME's people were just wrapping up what little they had to do and Lanie had joined their conversation. In a matching hushed tone, she continued, "I did a little extra testing of my own when I got to work this morning, and I found out something I think we could use here."

"What's that?" asked Beckett.

"I'm blocked from, uh, 'examining' the dead. So if I can get in to see one of the witnesses..."

"We'll be able to figure out if these guys are still alive." Ryan understood immediately, and led the ME to the back of the diner.

After a few tense minutes, Lanie and Ryan re-joined the group. "They're alive, I'm sure of it," declared Lanie.

"But that doesn't prove the missing people aren't dead," insisted Beckett, "just that the ones our guy didn't get control of aren't dead."

Castle's mind was persistently trying to put the puzzle pieces together. "We know that the women who were killed all had neurological problems. What about Matthew Cho?"

Lanie shook her head. "No Tourette's, sorry." A realization dawned on the ME as she continued, "but he *is* bipolar..."

The new information locked the pieces of Castle's theory into place. "I'll bet we'll find other psychological disorders when we look at the medical records of our witnesses to this attack. And I'd bet my next royalty check that means the missing people are alive and under the wizard's control." When the other four members of the group regarded him quizzically, Castle continued, "When you create a spell, you have to take every possible issue with your target into account. It's one of the biggest reasons Alexis warned me off of teleporting. If someone in my target destination moves a sofa when I'm in transit I could literally wind up *in* the sofa."

"So you're saying our perp based his spell off of how a normal, healthy human brain functions?" asked Ryan.

Castle nodded. "And the spell went cockeyed anytime it ran into someone whose brain didn't fit that pattern. A neurological disorder on top of the spell killed the person. A psychological disorder meant the guy lived, but the wizard couldn't control them."

"We still need to see what happened here. Until we do we're just working off of theories," mused Beckett. "Lanie, any ideas as to when these guys might wake up?"

A chaotic clash of banging noises from the restrooms gave Beckett the answer to her question. Wincing, she commented, "I guess they're awake."

"Then I guess I'm up," Esposito declared nervously. He motioned for his partner to join him as he walked back to the restrooms.

They returned a few moments later. "Did you get anything?" asked Castle.

It was hard not to miss the chill that ran down Esposito's spine as he recalled what he had seen. He chose his words carefully. "The vic wasn't eaten by one of those...things, she was eaten by at least five of 'em. Our guy is getting more skilled each time he hits. The hostess was stabbed by the wizard the same way he got David Cho. After that, the wizard had her and Cho totally under his control."

"Was *anyone* able to escape?" asked Beckett, holding out hope against the answer she knew was coming.

As Beckett expected, Esposito shook his head with a shudder. "A couple of people tried, but the glass shattered back in their faces as they tried to climb out a window. It was like shooting fish in a barrel...every person they bit turned immediately *except* for our vic. She collapsed in a seizure after she got bit, and then five of those things jumped her...We're just lucky the attack wasn't during a meal rush."

"While this confirms my theory," Castle mused, "It still leaves one question unanswered. The wizard clearly got the results he was looking for...this time." When Esposito nodded his agreement, Castle continued, "So why stop here? Why not take his zombies and start his attack in earnest?"

"He doesn't have enough people yet," Esposito replied. "At best, he's got eighteen slaves right now. That's not a small crew, but it's not an army either."

Ryan asked the group, "So where's he going next?"

"It won't be a hospital," remarked Beckett, "but that's about all we can be sure of." She turned to her team. "And he can't attack too many more places without drawing attention on a much bigger scale than us. It's going to be big, and it's going to be soon. Esposito, go over your memories of the two attacks again. See if there's *anything* you can see that will tip us off to what this guy's eventual goal is. Ryan, I need some idea of the most likely nearby targets. For all we know they could be attacking as we speak. Lanie, how soon until we can get the autopsy results on the Cho women?"

Lanie looked at her watch and frowned. "It's after 5 now. Even if I can get the prelims done tonight, none of the tests would even get started until morning."

Beckett pinched the bridge of her nose and let out a frustrated sigh. "Okay, do the best you can. I'm going to work with Castle to see if we can find a way to counter this shield so our guy can't hide behind it anymore."

As the group broke up, Ryan pulled out his cell phone. "I better call Jenny," he told his partner, "let her know tonight's going to be late."

* * *

Jenny stomped around the kitchen trying to fix dinner...even though food was the farthest thing from her mind. Very few of her everyday activities had taken precedence that day. Her students, her friends, the rest of New York City...everyone kept her at arm's length. Jenny was consumed the entire day by one thought; a thought that buried her normally gentle personality under a green curtain of rage and jealousy.

Was her husband having an affair?

Her rational mind kept trying to tell her that she was being ridiculous. "It's just my hormones," she said to no one in particular. "I'm probably just being silly." After all, she had been *convinced* that her then-boyfriend had been sleeping with *Natalie Rhodes*, of all people, and almost lost her chance to even *get* married to the man she loves because of her irrational, raging jealousy.

But then who was this Alexis woman? Kevin had barely spoken more than two words to his wife since he got back from the Hamptons, but he called *Alexis* the minute he got home. Why?

In Jenny's mind, that only proved that Kevin cared more for this Alexis woman than he did for her.

He *had* to be having an affair.

The ring of Jenny's phone interrupted her angry thoughts. "Hello?"

"Jen?" Her husband's voice came through on the other end of the line. "Listen hon, I'm probably going to have to stay late at the precinct tonight. A big case dropped this morning and I'm going to be stuck doing a ton of research."

_I'll bet, _thought Jenny, _he's probably heading off to spend the night with *her*. _She tried and failed to keep the bitter edge out of her voice. "Okay, honey. Any idea when you'll get home?"

"Sorry, no," Kevin replied. "It'll probably be after you get to bed."

"Then I'll see you tomorrow, I guess."

"Honey, is everything okay?"

Jenny took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to remain as civil as she could. "I'm fine, Kevin. I'll see you tomorrow." _*click*_

* * *

Ryan hung up his phone and turned to his partner, frowning in guilt and confusion. "Javi, did you ever feel like you did something wrong, but you had no idea what it was?"

"Bro, I'm dating *Lanie*." Esposito teased his friend with a smile and a reassuring wink. "I feel like that every day."

**Don't forget to leave a comment! **


	12. Chapter 12

Castle and the three detectives looked up at the high-rise building, squinting as the early morning sun burned its way into the east corner of their sleep-deprived eyes. "Ryan, Esposito, are you guys *sure* that this is the place?" asked Beckett.

"This is the place I had a nightmare about last night," Esposito shrugged.

"It's also the most heavily occupied apartment building in the area," added Ryan. "That can't be a coincidence."

Castle took a cautious step toward the building, feeling the magic energy hum like a curtain in front of him. He put a hand up and reached out to the windows of the building, jumping as the energy sparked and danced under his touch. "Beckett, are you getting this?"

"Getting what?" asked Beckett.

"This place is still being protective by an active shield. I'm almost sure of it," declared Castle.

Beckett turned up her sight and focused all her attention on the building in the hopes of understanding what she was missing. It didn't take much additional focus for her to see the strands of glowing blue energy that crisscrossed the building. "Can you disable it, Castle?"

"I'll give it my best shot," he replied. Castle drew in a deep breath, then let it out slowly to focus the energy he was just learning how to control. Looking up at the building, he spoke quietly and forcefully. "If this place is illusion-sealed, may its fateful truth now be revealed."

Beckett watched as a dense curtain of blue energy rose from the ground in front of Castle to envelop the building. The building's facade shimmered as the two spells warred for control over what was seen by the outside world. Castle's spell overwhelmed the standing shield, which simply disappeared under the assault of Castle's magic.

It was clear to Beckett that something had happened to the power surrounding the building, but other than that, the atmosphere felt eerily quiet and still. The group approached the building tentatively to find...nothing had changed beyond their ability to now go through the point where the shield had once been. Beckett and her team cautiously entered the lobby, Beckett stretching out her hearing as far as she dared. "I hear...growling," she told her team quietly, "but it's not on this floor."

They passed an empty security desk. Ryan crept around to check behind the desk. "I found blood," he told them.

Beckett followed her fellow detective behind the desk. She took note of the small dark puddle of drying blood that Ryan had found, then extended her sight around the area to look for more, frowning when she found no trace. "There isn't blood anywhere else on this floor. Just here."

"That's consistent with the first turn in the other two attacks," Esposito added, "he always seems to want to do the first one himself."

"Is that a control thing," Beckett thought aloud, "or is he still trying to perfect the spell?"

Castle replied, "My money's on perfecting the spell. He probably hasn't figured out yet why the spell doesn't work on everyone he comes across."

"Beckett," asked Ryan, "are you still hearing growling? How far away is it?"

Beckett reached out her hearing. "Some," she replied. "But it's faint, and it's hard to tell distance through the walls."

Esposito found the door to the stairwell. "So are we going to check out this place, or call for backup?"

"We don't know how many of them are up there," Castle warned. "I know I can get us out of there, but if we bring in anyone else..."

Beckett agreed with her partner. "Calling for backup would just put *them* in a level danger that they wouldn't be able to handle. No, we'll go ourselves...at least to the second floor."

Ryan and Esposito nodded in acknowledgement, pulling out their weapons and removing the safeties. Beckett turned down her sense of touch as she felt the magic of Castle's shield spell settle on her skin, and the three cops made their way up the stairs, Castle bringing up the rear behind them.

The group steeled themselves as Esposito opened the door to the second floor...and pitch black darkness. "Anyone got a flashlight?" whispered Ryan.

"Allow me," replied Castle in a matching whisper. He reached up until his fingers just grazed the top of the ceiling and whispered, "Let there be light." The ceiling started to glow with a dim blue light, giving the team just enough light to see by...not that there was much that they *wanted* to see.

The hallway was in far worse shape than the lobby below them had been. Every apartment door was open, many of them swinging slowly back and forth in the eerie silence. The group cleared the floor quickly and methodically, room by room...but found nothing but abandoned apartments. When they reached the end of the hallway, Beckett pointed a finger up to the ceiling in an unspoken question as to whether or not they should continue. Three heads nodded in agreement.

The group returned to their positions, using the combined light from the lobby and Castle's first floor glow-light to make their way up the stairs to the third floor. Castle reached up to the ceiling, and repeated the light spell...

...just in time to see five uncontrolled zombies roaming the halls. The group watched with fascination as the light seemed to hold the zombies transfixed. They were so transfixed by the light that only one thing seemed to break the spell that the spell had over the zombies.

The smell of four fresh living human beings at the other end of the hall.

The zombies let out a terrifying chorus of howls, then, as one, they charged down the hall with the speed of a cheetah, leaving the three detectives with no time to react to the attacking mob.

Castle, though, only needed half a moment to react with the power of a fearful, instinctive though, and in the blink of an eye the group was back in the lobby outside of the building.

The group let out a collective sigh of relief. "Nice timing, Castle. Thanks." Ryan exclaimed with a smile.

Beckett was a little more cautious. "We're not out of the woods yet," she declared. "If any of those things make it to street level...Castle, can you seal the building off with a shield like the one we broke through to get in?"

Castle nodded. "Shouldn't be a problem, but we have to get outside to do it."

"Yeah, no doubt, bro," commented Esposito. "I do *not* want to lock myself in here with those things."

The group left the building, squinting at the contrast in going from the dark hallways out onto 34th Street. Once everyone's eyes were adjusted to the light, though, the space that surrounded them disturbed the group of savvy New Yorkers.

"It's too quiet. I don't like it," declared Esposito.

"I'm inclined to agree with you, Javi," added Ryan. "Normally at this time of day we'd see at least people on the street and cars going by..."

"Sìfāng!"

The voice boomed through the canyon of high-rise buildings. "Anyone blowing that much hot air could only be calling for me," Castle said to no one in particular.

The group turned to the source of the sound and was faced with the lead pack of what looked to be sea of zombies. The front line pushed at a barely visible shield wall, sniffing aggressively in the direction of the four humans in front of them.

"My God," Beckett whispered, "there must be a thousand of them..."

The wizard laughed, a sound that resonated clearly even over the roaring cacophony of snarls and growls of the zombies under his control. "Did you think to escape me, Sìfāng? How foolish. This world will belong to my master soon enough...starting with your beloved city." The wizard leaned on his staff as he turned back toward his slaves, parting the sea of zombies with a wave.

And with a simple declaration of "Kill them," the wizard dropped the containment shield. The zombies took off toward Castle and the detectives at a fully powered sprint.

"Guys," babbled Ryan nervously, "Even though we've gotten to be *really* good at hand-to-hand fighting there's *no* way..."

On that point the group was already in full agreement. Beckett yelled, "RUN!"

They took off, running for their lives. Beckett, Ryan and Esposito fled at their top speed, leaving Castle floundering in their wake. Castle found his own way to keep up, though, popping to Beckett's side whenever the other three got more than a block ahead of him.

Groups of zombies split off north and south at every avenue, attacking anyone who was unlucky enough to be in the vicinity of 34th Street on that day. Still the zombies charged, gaining ground on Beckett and her team with every step.

The surge of adrenaline coursing through his veins kept Ryan running, blindly following his partner, only barely aware of the horde of zombies keeping pace behind him. So it was a jarring shock to the system when Esposito pulled him out of the street and into a store. Gasping for breath, he turned to his partner. "Javi? What gives? Why'd you leave Castle and Beckett out there?"

Esposito looked like he was half listening to his partner and half listening to information he was getting from another source. Castle and Beckett joined the two detectives in a blink, confused as to why Esposito had pulled his partner and *only* his partner into the building. "Espo," Beckett finally spat out, her outrage clear, "What the hell...?"

Between gasps for breath, Esposito declared to the group, "I know how to stop them."

Ryan looked to his partner in shock. "Have you finally lost it? If we had an army-"

"Exactly," Esposito responded matter-of-factly. "We need an army."

"Where do you suppose we *get* an army?" It was then that Beckett realized exactly where they were. "At *Macy's*? You think we're going to get an army at Macy's? Where? Next to the blenders?"

"Uh, bro..."

The senior detective was just getting started. "In sporting goods? Heck, maybe they're in the lingerie department nowadays-"

Finally Esposito snapped Beckett out of her babbling and got the group's attention. "Or maybe we should just ask the *tiger* that is now staring at us."

It took a second for Ryan to process his partner's last statement. He followed his partner's line of sight only to discover that his partner was, indeed, staring at a Bengal tiger in the middle of the Macy's cosmetics counters.

The tiger was fixated on Esposito exclusively. Ryan, Beckett and Castle looked around, noticing that with all of the scared people hiding out in the store, no one seemed to realize that there was a tiger in their midst except for them. A voice echoed through their minds. _How may I serve you, my lords?_

Esposito looked up to see if that had been his partner in his mind. Ryan shook his head. "That wasn't me. I heard it, too." Castle and Beckett nodded their heads in agreement.

The tiger looked from Ryan to Esposito with an expression on its face that Ryan could have sword to be confusion. _You are the Shuāng jiàn, are you not? _When Ryan and Esposito started to share the tiger's expression of confusion, the tiger shook its head, exasperated. _No matter. You will learn all of who you are soon enough. _The tiger turned its full attention to Esposito. _Just know that what you need will be given you. Have you any specific instructions?_

"Don't get bitten," Esposito replied, "or you will be under the enemy's control." Remembering Beckett's orders, he added, "oh, and don't kill them unless your life depends on it."

_As you wish, my lords._

The tiger exploded into a thousand balls of orange light that started to float around the store. When one of the lights found an adult who wasn't caring for someone else, it hit that person square in the chest. They would stagger from the impact, then straighten up as the light filled them with supernatural strength.

The zombies in Herald Square erupted with a terror-inducing roar as they started to rush the doors of Macy's, looking for their four targets. The tiger's army answered the zombies' roar with a roar of their own that echoed throughout every corner of the store, and the newborn super soldiers rushed the doors to destroy the zombie horde.

The group watched the whole army-recruitment process in awe-struck shock. Esposito vaguely remembered a rule that Ryan had suggested when they were in the Hamptons. "Rule #1, bro?"

"Most definitely. Rule #1," Ryan stammered. Gathering his courage, Ryan turned back to his friends. "So you guys wanna go kick some zombie ass?"

Esposito couldn't help but smile as the first lights of hope started to return to his thoughts. "Most definitely, bro. Most definitely."


	13. Chapter 13

The entrances to Macy's weren't just surrounded by zombies. They were buried underneath them. The horde pressed against the doors like a tidal wave of inhumanity, climbing over each other in piles two and three men deep. They clawed at the glass, desperate to break through and do their master's bidding. On the other side, the front lines of the tiger's army pushed back against the horde with equal force. Beckett and Ryan led the civilians to the fourth floor food court, then Ryan jogged the perimeter of the first floor, watching the tenuous tug-of-war between both sides.

Ryan then joined back up with his friends in the center aisle of the makeup department. "Those doors aren't going to hold for long under all that stress," he told them.

The group jumped at the sounds of breaking glass, immediately assuming that one of their barricades had finally given way. Beckett was looking up, though, instead of around her...a motion that caught the group's attention immediately. "I think that glass broke on the second floor," she told them.

Beckett raced up the escalator, Castle hot on her heels. She crossed the floor carefully, scanning the area in case a zombie climbed over his cohorts or worse, the wizard had used the zombie distraction to get into the store. When Beckett got within sight of the windows, though, she discovered she had no need to worry.

A small group of soldiers had taken mannequins and smashed through the windows overlooking Herald Square. They then jumped into the windows, letting out an explosive, roaring battle cry before leaping into the fray.

On the first floor, the soldiers looked up in response to their brothers' call to battle, then turned to Esposito for guidance.

"Leave only enough to secure the doors," Esposito ordered, "the rest of you...upstairs."

Fifty men on the front lines stayed behind, fighting twice as hard to protect those trapped inside the store. The rest of the army sprinted up the escalators and across the store to follow their spirit-brothers out the window to the battle below, nearly plowing over Beckett in the process.

Ryan and Esposito helped their friend up from her spot where she had fallen, then the trio stopped to look out at the scene below them. It seemed like they were watching a massive five-against-one training session...if it wasn't for the life vs. undeath air surrounding the combatants. None of them had had any idea what the army of the prophecy would look like. The last thing they expected was to see a supernatural army composed of a thousand angry New Yorkers. Every member of the tiger's army was outnumbered at least five to one...yet they were not only holding their own in the fight, but the tide was quickly turning in their favor.

The first wave of soldiers pulled the pile of zombies away from the doors of the store, hurtling each of them into unconsciousness with the strength and speed the tiger's gift had given them. This freed up their spirit-brothers to join them outside.

The rest of the zombies continued to back away from Macy's, their prey apparently forgotten. Their more urgent priority had become staying upright in the face of the power that was now opposing them.

Ryan noticed the concern edged with jealousy in the expression on his partner's face. "So...General Esposito," he teased his partner, "care to join your men on the battlefield?"

A devilish smile crawled across Esposito's face as, without responding, he took his own leap out the window. Esposito was an automatic target for the horde, though, almost immediately overwhelmed by the snarling, drooling, mass of humanity surrounding him when he hit the ground. He punched and kicked at the circle of bodies surrounding him, hoping against all rational hope that he could get out from under this mess that he had gotten himself into. The horde latched onto his limbs as he punched, and Esposito could feel the pop in his shoulder blades as the zombie mob stretched his arms to the limits of what his body allowed. He gritted his teeth, idly wondering whether he was going to feel his arms get pulled out of their sockets before he felt the first bite of teeth digging into his flesh.

Neither happened. Esposito collapsed to his knees as one arm was forcibly released, then the other. He looked up from that prone position to see Ryan and Beckett leading three of his men in pushing the attacking horde away from him. Beckett then turned back to her friend and offered a hand to help him up. "More battle than you could handle, 'General'?" she teased.

Esposito rolled his eyes even as he allowed his friends to pull him to a standing position. "Just wait until the next time we're sparring..." he grumbled.

Ryan allowed himself just a flash of a genuine smile before swinging around to punch the zombie barreling down behind them.

* * *

Castle watched the battle below him, feeling paralyzed, powerless and frustrated. He knew he couldn't make the jump from the second story window under his own power, but when every inch of Herald Square was covered with bodies in some state of consciousness, he had no safe place to blink down to. Castle watched Esposito go down in horror, then in relief as Ryan and Beckett rescued his friend and brought him back into the fight.

_Was this it? _he thought. The battle had turned in their favor, but only from overwhelming defeat to barely breaking even. For every two zombies the army brought down, two by-standers were turned and attacked. Could the tiger's army withstand the onslaught?

One of the soldiers jumped back up to Castle's viewpoint on the second floor and spoke to him with the voice of the tiger. _Why are you still here, Sìfāng?_

"I...I don't know how to help," Castle replied.

A picture rose in Castle's mind. The wizard they were fighting was walking away from Herald Square, heading uptown among a crowd of his minions.

_I will take care of my own, Sìfāng. Focus on finding and defeating *him*, and this battle will end._

* * *

The wave of zombies didn't retreat using the 34th street route that their creator had brought them down. It was Ryan who first realized the wizard's next intended destination for his army. The detective sprinted down Broadway, hoping that both his friends and the tiger's army would hear him. "They're being herded to Times Square! Head them off!"

* * *

Castle followed the tiger's advice and focused on finding the other wizard. He found himself behind the tiny NYPD precinct in Times Square. Castle quickly checked both sides of the One Times Square building, finding the wizard at the head of a tidal wave of chaos coming up Broadway. Cars were stopped on both sides of 42nd street, ignoring the traffic lights to gawk at the 'parade' of violence in front of them. Even in the mass of humanity surrounding him, though, Castle's focus was only on his opponent. His voice was laced with power as he declared, "This needs to end, wizard!"

The wizard stopped, doubled over with an arrogant laughter that echoed through the area. "Who's going to stop me? You? No one has stopped me so far!"

Castle's eyes flashed blue with fury, his rage overruling any other thought or emotion. A ball of blazing orange fire condensed in his hand. "We'll see about that," he spat out quietly as he flung the fireball at his enemy.

The wizard's shield flashed a blazing red as he deflected Castle's fireball to explode into the concrete side of a nearby building. He looked...impressed. "Hmmm. I am surprised. That was far more than I could have expected...from an infant. Which will make your valiant death all the more tragic." The wizard countered Castle's fireball with a fireball of his own.

Castle caught the wizard's fireball and flung it back at him. While the wizard's shield deflected any damage he would have received from his own magic, the kinetic power of the impact sent him flying back into his slaves, who backed away from their master in fear even as a small handful cushioned his fall and helped him back to his feet. "And so the battle begins..." declared Castle.

* * *

Ryan caught up with Castle, keeping his distance as his friend traded blows with the enemy wizard. Beckett followed closely behind Esposito, who found his partner in the crowd at 43rd street, trying to enlist the help of the uniforms and control the growing crowd. It wasn't hard to see why Ryan was having trouble. Eyes widening slowly in bewildered amazement, Esposito gasped out, "They think this is a *show*, don't they? Some kind of street performance?"

Ryan nodded. "At least they've kept their distance so far."

"Thank God for small favors," commented Beckett. "How's Castle doing?"

"Holding his own. Thing is...every time Castle gets a hit on the other guy, one of the zombies goes back to normal."

Esposito's eyes widened at that revelation. "Seriously, bro?" When Ryan nodded, Esposito declared, "Then let's make sure Castle can get as many hits as possible."

They took up positions surrounding their wizard: Ryan on his right, Esposito on his left and Beckett behind him. Castle noticed his friends almost instinctively, shielding them with only the barest thought given to the task. The three detectives fought fiercely; taking down any opponent (human or not) that crossed their path.

Castle hardly noticed them. His focus was on one thing and one thing only: bringing his enemy to his knees, bit by painful bit. When Castle threw a bolt of pure energy at the wizard, his shield deflected it into the lights of 42nd Street, shorting them out. The wizard then threw a white-hot fireball at Castle, who deflected the ball harmlessly into a high arc that landed in the Hudson River. The two wizards traded blow after blow, sometimes absorbing the energy into their shields, sometimes deflecting the blows into the air, surrounding lights and billboards. Castle watched every deflected blow carefully, 'wishing' away any shot that could hurt the masses of people he sensed were still surrounding them.

The enemy wizard fell to the ground, collapsing as his energy left him. The amount of raw power the 'infant' had under his control left the wizard speechless. And his allies...each seemed to be formidable warriors on their own, but the army they had at their command was a force that he knew he would be unable to conquer. The wizard was starting to understand that this battle was going to be his last.

So, in one final act of desperation, the wizard called up his last remaining energy and vanished in retreat. He was dumped unceremoniously on the steps of the TKTS building. Unable to stand, the wizard crawled down the stairs to fall prostrate at the feet of a young asian man sitting at the bottom level. "Master, I have failed you," the wizard choked out in a voice that was part whisper and part sob. "I wanted to give you this world...but it is protected."

The young man's dark eyes were serene; his response was quiet. "Where is your staff, my son?"

"At the top of the staircase, master."

The young man sighed...a sound that was louder than it should have been and full of barely contained annoyance. Without saying another word he climbed the staircase. He picked up the staff, watching with a sense of smug satisfaction as the dragon turned from silver to gold in his presence. The dragon master returned to ground level to take care of his apprentice. "You did your best, my child."

The wizard wept with gratefulness at the compliment. "Thank you, master."

"Unfortunately, that just shows me how weak and incompetent you truly are."

The dragon master drove the staff through the back of his apprentice and deep into the concrete, skewering the older man through the heart. He then pulled out the staff with a grunt and walked through the crowd to face this world's 'protectors'.

The people surrounding the TKTS booth backed away from the body in horror, trying to avoid the growing pool of blood. At that end of Times Square, there was no question in anyone's mind that this was a very dangerous, very *real* situation.

It was only then that people started to scream.

* * *

Castle turned around, scanning the area for his missing enemy. Sensing nothing of value, he asked his friends, "Anyone see where he went?"

Beckett's attention was drawn immediately to a flash of light on the other side of Times Square. Her sight focused on the source of the light...the gold dragon atop the wizard's staff. She then noticed that the hand holding that staff belonged to a much younger man. Beckett watched in horror as the staff went through the back of someone on the ground, and drew her gun almost by reflex, calling out as loud as she could muster, "NYPD! FREEZE!" She then took off toward the TKTS booth.

The sight of Beckett's gun broke the entertainment haze of the crowd surrounding them. They took off, running in all directions...including *toward* the zombies, who took full advantage. The few remaining zombies jumped at the chance to attack fresh meat, biting anyone unfortunate enough to flee within their grasp. The tiger's army, though, made short work of the newly turned zombies, knocking them out before they had any chance to understand what had happened to them.

The rest of the team followed Beckett's lead, using every gift they had to make sure they didn't lose her among the stampede. It felt like everyone within a mile of them had started running for their lives.

With one exception. A lone woman stood motionless in the chaos, paralyzed with fear. Out of the corner of his eye, Ryan noticed the stillness among the chaos. He stopped dead in his tracks when he *recognized* who the woman was. The only person whose safety was more important to him than protecting his city, his friends, or even his partner.

His wife.


	14. Chapter 14

Jenny O'Malley Ryan *hated* going anywhere near Times Square. The crowds of tourists were a constant invasion on anyone's concept of personal space, and the horrendously over-complicated traffic patterns combined with the noise of the various street performers competing for every dollar of tip money left her jumpy and stressed even after a few minutes of walking around the area.

But sometimes, going through Times Square was simply unavoidable. And when the only P.I. who was willing to tail a cheating cop had his offices on 46th and 7th, well, sometimes it was easiest to just take a deep breath, hold on to your purse and push your way through the madhouse.

When Jenny climbed the stairs at the 49th Street train station, though, she found Times Square to be absurdly quiet. The crowds of people were still there, but their attention seemed to be focused on something that she couldn't see on the opposite side of the square. Her appointment forgotten, Jenny fought through the crowd, wondering what could possibly be so captivating that it was holding the complete attention of everyone in the 'crossroads of the world'.

When she got to 47th street Jenny noticed that whatever people were trying to see was at the intersection of 42nd and Broadway. As she pushed two more blocks downtown, Jenny realized that there was some sort of giant fight scene going on. _Maybe they're shooting a movie or something..._she thought.

44th Street seemed to be the closest that any of the spectators dared to want to go. As Jenny approached the intersection, she saw why. The combatants didn't have the look of practiced stunt fighters. These people looked like they were fighting for their *lives*. And their opponents...Jenny shivered as she realized that the snarling, drooling, hell-maddened faces would probably be populating her nightmares for many nights to come.

It was then that she recognized one of the people in the middle of the fight. Jenny's eyes widened as she watched her quiet, shy, gentle, and above all mild-mannered husband fighting like he was in the middle of some Jet Li movie. Kevin was like a tiger; he was fighting with a level of speed and ferocious strength that she *knew* they didn't teach at the police academy. Up until now, it was a level of fighting that Jenny thought she would only see in the movies, because no one could ever fight like that in real life.

But Kevin was doing it. And unless she missed her guess, so was his partner. And dozens of other people stretching out in a fight that was going on for as far as her eyes could see down Broadway. Only one person was not fighting among everyone in the scene before her: one man who was simply standing there with a clear look of angry confusion on his face. Jenny recognized the man as much from the books in her library as from the few times she had seen him at the precinct. _Is that...Richard Castle?_

A second later, all hell broke loose.

Screams were erupting from the part of Times Square where Jenny had been just moments earlier. She turned to see people scattering behind her like roaches under a lamp. And the screams were starting to come *toward her* like an audible tidal wave. A nervous thought formed in Jenny's mind and sank to knot deep in the pit of her stomach. _What the hell is coming toward me if people are just getting scared *now*?_

Jenny turned back toward the fight she had been watching and locked eyes with her husband, whose eyes widened visibly when he saw her. His lips were moving, and he seemed to be calling her, but the screams of the scattering mob around her kept Jenny from hearing almost anything else. Kevin took off at a full sprint toward her, and she finally heard his call as he almost ran into her. _JENNY!_

Idly, Jenny started to wonder if she was having some sort of martial arts movie nightmare. After all, she had just heard her husband scream her name even though his lips stopped moving before he ran to her...

Her husband's voice echoed in her mind once again. _Jenny! This is real, and I need you to get out of here and *go* *home*! _

Jenny looked to her husband in a daze of confusion. Was he talking to her? She was sure she had heard him, but since his lips weren't moving she figured it was just in her head...

The painfully loud sound of splitting metal shook Jenny out of her daze. She looked up to see a billboard heading straight for her. Her husband lifted her off her feet and ran carrying her toward the building, hoping to avoid any piece of the falling...

Confetti?

Jenny looked to her husband, her confusion only increasing. She followed his line of sight to find Castle looking at them. The author gave them a small nod before turning his attention elsewhere. Kevin pulled Jenny's attention back to him as he could finally yell loud enough to be heard. "Jen, I can't do anyone any good here if I don't know you're safe. Please, *please* promise me you'll go home?"

Stunned into submission, Jenny nodded. Kevin pointed to three of the men he had just been fighting alongside. He spoke to them like a commander giving orders to his men. "I need you three to escort my wife home. When she's there safely, you are freed from service."

Jenny gasped as the eyes of her escorts flashed with an orange glow. Kevin, though, seemed satisfied as he turned her around and kissed the top of her head. She heard her husband's voice in her mind, _I *promise* I'll explain everything when this is over._

And as her three escorts nudged her silently down 44th Street and away from Times Square, Jenny heard Kevin's voice in her head one last time.

_I love you, Jenny. I'll see you soon._

* * *

Ryan returned to his position, flanking and protecting his wizard. He projected, _Thanks, Castle._

_Don't thank me yet,_ Castle replied in his mind. _We still have to get out of this in one piece._

"Sìfāng!"

The other wizard's voice boomed out over Times Square, roaring over the snarls of the zombies and the screams of the few remaining spectators who hadn't found their way out of the war zone yet. "There are plenty of signs here, Sìfāng. I can keep going if you'd like."

Castle melodramatically waggled his finger in his ear, pulling his finger out to feign soothing his eardrums. "You know," he called out to the wizard, "I'm right *here*, you don't have to yell like that."

The wizard's laugh was as powerful as it was arrogant. Glass shattered around him, as windows in the area seemed to explode in fearful response. "Do you still think you are dealing with my apprentice, Sìfāng? As you can see, I have taken care of that weakness myself."

Beckett focused on the now clear line of sight to the TKTS booth. "He's dead," she told the group. "That's who I saw him kill earlier."

Castle mentally called on the four elements to replenish his waning strength for the upcoming battle. As a powerful rush of energy nearly overwhelmed him, Castle fought to keep his face a precise mask of control as he boomed, "What do you want, Lóng zhǔ?"

Lóng zhǔ laughed again, bringing more windows crashing to the ground before he turned serious. "I want this world, Sìfāng. I want its resources, I want its power, I want its position in the universe and I want its people as my slaves. *All* of you."

His voice brimming with raw power, Castle's response was as booming as Lóng zhǔ's had ever been. "And what if we say no?"

"No?" Lóng zhǔ raised his voice in surprise. "No? You think you can say *no*? You don't get a choice!"

Lóng zhǔ threw a fireball at Castle, which he caught effortlessly. "Let me make something clear to you, Lóng zhǔ. This world is *protected*. If you want it that badly, then you're going to have to go through *me* to get it."

The fireball grew in Castle's hand as he fed it more power. When it was a white-hot force of energy bigger than a basketball, Castle flung the ball back at his enemy.

Lóng zhǔ deflected the fireball with his shield, and Castle called for a microburst of wind to drive the flaming energy into the ground. It left a crater three cars wide at the feet of Lóng zhǔ...so close that the wizard lost his balance and fell into it.

Enraged, Lóng zhǔ flew up out of the crater, landing in front of it before lashing out at Castle with a display of raw power. The wizard's hands glowed with a blazing, crackling blue light before attacking Castle with twin columns of energy.

Castle tweaked his shield on the fly, absorbing the attack and using the power to increase his own strength. "Is that the best you've got?" he growled.

"I am just getting started," replied Lóng zhǔ with a growl of equal ferocity.

A wall of fire slammed into Castle's shield. The bolts deflected into almost every corner of Times Square, setting cars, food carts and stores alight with terrible random fury. When Castle saw people running out of the burning stores, he tried to put out the fires by creating rain over any spot where he saw fire. While it held back the fire, it also sank the entire area into a murky black mixture of fog and smoke that not even Beckett could see through.

Esposito delivered new orders to the tiger's army. "Evacuate the buildings," he declared, "get as many to safety as you can."

The response echoed in the minds of everyone on the team. _As you wish, my lord. _Beckett, Ryan and Esposito each took a contingent of soldiers, spreading out around Times Square to focus on getting anyone who could be in danger out of the area.

Castle called on a blast of wind to clear the smoke and fog from the area, then ripped at Lóng zhǔ's shield with bolts of white-hot energy. They seemed to damage his enemy's shield but did not destroy it. Weakening slightly under the assault of the vicious magic duel, Lóng zhǔ decided to try a different tactic. He created a leopard-looking like animal made out of pure flame and sent it to attack Castle. Castle countered by surrounding the animal with an air-tight shield, slowly shrinking the sphere around the animal until it suffocated under the lack of oxygen.

"Warriors!" Lóng zhǔ called out down the canyon of Broadway, "Come to fight for your master!" The call of Lóng zhǔ was answered by...silence. There was not a single zombie left to come to his aid.

Castle couldn't help it; he laughed at his enemy. A *lot*. "Wow," he wisecracked as he wiped the tears from his eyes, "*that* was awkward."

Lóng zhǔ responded with another blistering show of force; this time trying bolts of ice instead of fire. Castle hardened his shield, letting the bolts deflect into the area to become Castle's weapon against the hungry flames surrounding him. He called on more rain to fight the small fires popping up throughout the area.

As the fires died, both wizards were soon soaked to the bone...which made Lóng zhǔ even more angry. He called up a wall of flame to dry himself off and warm up...which the wizard then sent flying back toward Castle. Castle countered with a powerful blast of wind to halt the flames, stopping them in front of their creator.

Lóng zhǔ tried to push the wall of flames forward, but was surprised when it not only refused to budge, but seemed to be advancing *toward* him. The angry wizard pushed harder, expending huge quantities of energy in a fight that, to his surprise, ultimately proved futile. As his own wall of fire surrounded him, Lóng zhǔ summoned the last drops of his energy to teleport himself out of the area before the flames would have fatally consumed him.

Castle wrapped the wind around the pillar of fire, tightening the noose quickly to extinguish the flames. He then jogged over to join his team at the spot where he *thought* they would be examining the burnt corpse of his enemy.

Ryan looked at the spot where they all thought the body of Lóng zhǔ should have been."Anyone see where he went?" he asked the group.

When three heads shook with a negative response, the team returned to a state of highest alert, standing back to back and scanning the area slowly for any sign of their enemy.

Beckett was the one who spotted him first. "One Times Square," she announced to the group, "just below where they drop the ball."

The three men could just barely make out the figure of the man they all knew that Beckett could see clearly. Lóng zhǔ staggered to his feet, every movement taking a Herculean effort. He used the last of his magical energy to bellow out to his opponent, "Sìfāng! You truly are a worthy opponent. But I wonder, how will you fare against my children?"

Confused, Castle called back to his enemy, "Your children have already been defeated, Lóng zhǔ."

"*Those* were not my children, Sìfāng," Lóng zhǔ replied, his voice laboring even as the sound traveled across Times Square. The sound of powerful roaring battle cries made the wizard smile, even though he knew his enemy would never see it. "*These*," Lóng zhǔ quietly stated, to no one but himself, "these are my children."

The trio of roars that echoed through Times Square shook everyone who heard them to their very core. Beckett, Ryan, and Esposito reached for their weapons, the feel of the steel in their hands a comfort against the terrifying unknown. That comfort faded quickly, though, when the next sound they heard made them wonder if their guns would make any difference in this fight at all.

That sound was the flapping of giant wings.

To no one but himself, Lóng zhǔ smiled even as he fought to catch his breath and regain his energy. "I had forgotten...that my children are nothing...but the stuff of legends...in your world. I wonder...if your legends...have taught you...how to fight them."

Below the wizard's perch, the group were continuing to watch the skies, every nerve in their bodies on the highest of alert. Beckett noticed one of the great beasts first, coming in from the northwest. "My God," she gasped. Turning to the northeast, then to the south, she prayed that her vision was playing tricks on her.

Castle watched the color drain from his partner's face. It was a sight he dreaded seeing; if *Beckett* was scared, they were in deep trouble. "Beckett?" Castle asked her quietly, a hand on her shoulder for support, "What is it?"

Strong, rational, detective Kate Beckett couldn't believe what she was seeing. But she knew she needed to warn her friends of the mortal danger coming their way. Even still, she could barely choke out what Lóng zhǔ's children were. "Dragons," she told her friends in a barely audible gasp.

"Three of them."


	15. Chapter 15

Castle watched the monsters' approach with disbelief. _How the hell are we supposed to fight *that*? _"Anyone got any ideas?"

In response, Castle heard the soft clicks of three safeties being removed from service weapons. 'General' Esposito took charge immediately. "Ryan and I will take the guy in the northeast, Beckett, you got the guy from the northwest?" When Beckett nodded her confirmation, Esposito concluded, "Okay, then Castle, you get the guy coming from downtown."

Castle's eyes widened in surprise. "You want *me* to take on one of those things by *myself*?"

Beckett replied with a sly smile and a quick kiss. "You're an all-powerful wizard, honey. I'm sure you'll think of something."

"I'm sure you'll think of something," Castle muttered under his breath. It wasn't long, though, before he had his inspiration.

The three cops almost immediately felt a change in their weight balance. Beckett reached behind her to discover a lightweight Japanese-style katana sheathed and strapped to her back. Looking at her friends, she quickly realized that Ryan and Esposito were also carrying similar weapons.

When Beckett turned her attention back to the giver of their unusual gifts, Castle smiled sheepishly in response. "In case you guys run out of bullets." The wizard then focused briefly on his girlfriend, grabbing Beckett by the wrist before she had a chance to take off after her prey. "Hey-be careful."

Beckett tried to let every ounce of love for Castle shine through in her voice. "Always." The cops then turned to take off after their prey and Castle turned to focus his attention on his own.

* * *

Beckett walked the bike path up Broadway, gun drawn, eyes tensely focused on her prey.

The dragon swooped down with incredible speed, giving her precious few opportunities to get a shot off.

Beckett pointed her gun at her target in the sky, aimed, and fired over and over again...then cursed in disappointment as every bullet that met its target barely seemed to make the beast do more than flinch.

The dragon circled around for another for another pass, letting out an ear-splitting roar before unleashing his own fiery counterattack.

Beckett fired as she ran, trying to use every one of her sensory gifts to send those bullets to points that she hoped would destroy her target once and for all.

It was no use. Between the dragon's thick scales, huge size and ability to respond quickly in flight, her bullets were no more of a threat than a bee sting would have been. Beckett just barely made it into the closest available doorway...a split second before the dragon's fiery breath rained down on the sidewalk just outside of that doorway.

Beckett turned around and quickly realized that she had sought shelter in a McDonald's. The dining room was full of people now looking at her wide-eyed and silent, paralyzed with shock and fear. "You probably don't want to go out there," she tried to joke nervously, "trust me."

A little girl broke away from her mother and made her way through the people standing in huddles between the cash registers and the door where Beckett stood. She came up and quietly tugged on the hem of Beckett's suit jacket. "Ma'am?"

Beckett looked down at the polite, brown-haired little girl. _Poor kid can't be older than five or six...she must be scared out of her mind. _The detective knelt down so she could get closer to looking the girl square in her startling blue eyes. "What is it?"

The girl's question was simple and direct. "Is that a dragon out there?"

_A simple question deserves a simple answer. _Beckett nodded. "Yes, sweetie, it is."

The girl seemed to be considering Beckett's answer carefully. She examined Beckett's weapons first. "Is that a gun?" When Beckett nodded, the girl continued, "I've never heard any stories where the dragon gets killed with a gun."

Beckett thought about how the weapon had fared in the battle to that point. "Yeah, me neither."

The girl then looked at the weapon strapped to Beckett's back. "Is that a sword?" Beckett nodded again. "I've heard lots of stories where the dragon gets killed with a sword."

"Yeah," Beckett agreed, piecing together a plan even as she tried to reassure the girl, "me too."

"But in those stories, it's always a boy who's killing the dragon." The girl then leaned in to speak to Beckett in a whisper, "and girls are better than boys anyway."

"I think so too," Beckett whispered back. She stood up and pulled the weapon out of its sheath. With a confidence she wasn't feeling, Beckett smiled as she asked the girl, "So what do you think?"

The girl looked at the weapon wide-eyed. "That's a cool sword. Can it kill the dragon?"

Beckett looked out the door, knowing she needed to go back out there and do her job. "I hope so," she muttered under her breath, "I sure hope so..."

Taking in a deep breath, Beckett gave the little girl one last wink and pushed herself back out the door. Keeping one eye on her high-flying prey at all times, she sprinted, sword in hand, across the street and behind the pillars of a nearby office building. Beckett peeked out from behind her cover. "C'mon, you overgrown lizard," she muttered, "come down here and *fight*."

Finally, Beckett's opportunity came. The dragon took two more flying passes at Broadway, seemingly determined to torch every abandoned car on the street, then landed in the courtyard of the office building. The beast sniffed at the pillars, as if making it clear that he was indeed looking specifically for *her*.

Beckett quietly put down her sword and took out her service revolver. In a blink she slipped out from behind her cover and two shots...which hit the dragon square in each eye. instantly blinded, the beast threw his head back, flinging fire at the tops of the surrounding skyscrapers with a terrible, deafening roar. Hoping that she wasn't about to get herself flambéed, Beckett dropped the gun and picked up her sword, sprinting toward her prey at top speed, holding the weapon in both hands...

...and gutted the beast from neck to navel. The dragon howled in agony, flames lighting up everything in the area as his head flailed around in violent death spasms. Beckett backed away from her prey, wanting to ensure its demise yet not wanting to get caught underneath it. Finally, the animal breathed its last and collapsed in the middle of Broadway.

Beckett sheathed her sword, then picked up her gun and holstered it. Taking one last look back at the McDonald's, she saw the little girl's face pressed up against the glass, beaming back at her with a trusting smile. It was that look that convinced Beckett that everything was going be okay.

The detective then took off running back toward Times Square.

* * *

Ryan and Esposito walked down the now-abandoned lanes of cars on Park Avenue, keeping their service revolvers drawn and eyes cautiously focused on the sky above them. "Bro, are you *sure* about this?" asked Esposito.

His partner tilted his head towards the billowing clouds of smoke rising up from what was left of Broadway. "Would you rather face a fire-breathing dragon *head on*? I mean, I know you don't get sunburned like I do, but..." Esposito tried to silence his partner with a wave of his hand, but Ryan had to get in the last word. "Unless you have a better idea?"

Esposito shook his head, annoyed but finally relenting. "I wish I did...but I don't."

"Then will you *please* focus on what we've gotta do here?"

Esposito nodded, turning his attention back to the skies...and not a second too soon. "We got incoming," he announced.

Ryan followed his partner's line of sight as the beast swooped down on them with the speed and size of an airborne, out-of-control eighteen wheeler. He tightened his grip on his weapon, saying one last quick prayer to any and all gods who might be listening in the hopes that his plan might work. He established a mind-link with his partner and started the countdown. _One...two..._

On _three _the two officers fired off as many rounds as they could, trying to reach any vulnerable spots in the dragon's soft underbelly.

The dragon roared by, setting every tree and flower on the median ablaze...and completely oblivious to every bullet fired in his direction. Ryan cursed through the mind link in frustration. _Did we hit that thing at *all*?_

_We hit it all right, _replied Esposito as he re-loaded his weapon, _it just didn't make any difference._

_We're never going to take him down when he's in the air, _complained Ryan.

Esposito found inspiration in his partner's comment. _We need to clip his wings._

Ryan's eyes widened in shock. _And just how exactly do you propose we do *that*? It's not like either of us has an assault..._his attempt at a tirade was cut off when Esposito holstered his gun and unsheathed the sword from his back. Mimicking his partner's motions, Ryan let out a small groan before switching back to the mind-link. _I'm not going to like this, am I?_

* * *

Standing on the roof of the Waldorf Astoria, Ryan knew he had been right. He didn't like this at *all*.

Esposito watched the dragon circle around for another approach, then looked down at ground level and went over the plan again in his mind. "We'll probably only get one shot at this, bro," he told his partner.

Ryan rolled his eyes at Esposito's statement of the obvious. "Ya think?" Nervously, Ryan then unsheathed his sword, holding it in both hands in a stance that mirrored his partner's. "Three, two, one, then we go, right?"

Esposito nodded, his eyes never leaving their prey as it headed toward their previous location. He took a few steps back to prepare for a running start. "Three...two...one...JUMP!"

Both men took leapt off the roof, holding their swords high overhead with both hands. Esposito's running start gave him just enough extra distance to match his partner as each man landed squarely on their intended targets: the dragon's large, leathery wings. Instantly both men drove their swords down into the skin underneath their feet. The great beast howled in pain, flapping his wings up and down in a panicked attempt to lose the two humans. Gravity worked in Ryan and Esposito's favor, though, as the swords cut deeper into the dragon's skin with every upward motion. The dragon's flight grew less controlled with each flap of the great beast's now shredded wings, with Ryan and Esposito hanging on to the ragged edges of each wing for dear life. Finally, the dragon crashed violently into the ground, barreling through burning cars and trees until he skidded to a stop in front of the MetLife building.

Ryan got up quickly from where he had rolled into his landing, shaken but otherwise uninjured. When he started to scan the area to find his partner's landing site, he was shaken by the howls of pain from the dragon next to him. Ryan sprinted back to the crash site, pulled his sword out from the wing, then climbed onto the back of the beast and ran up the length of the animal's spine until he reached its head. There, with one last great push, Ryan drove the sword through the dragon's skull, killing him instantly.

The detective nearly jumped off the dragon's back when he heard an odd noise behind him...only calming down when he realized the sound was a single man's hands clapping in applause. Ryan turned around to see his partner giving him a standing ovation. "Who'd have thought NYPD really stood for New York Police Dragonslayers?" joked Esposito. "Nicely done!"

"Hey, it was your plan," Ryan commented. His tone turned briefly serious as he then asked, "You doin' okay, man?"

Esposito nodded. "Not a scratch, far as I can tell. You, bro?"

"I'm good," Ryan replied as he jumped down from the dragon's carcass.

Esposito watched his partner even as he examined the aftermath of their victory. "Think Castle and Beckett had as much trouble as we did?"

Ryan's face drained of color as he realized their dangerous mistake. "Javi, we gotta get back and help Castle."

Esposito looked to his partner, confused. "What, bro, you think Castle can't handle taking down his dragon either?"

"No, that's just it," insisted Ryan. "He *can't* take down the dragon. Or the other wizard, or anything else. The legend said the wizard has no power over life or death."

Esposito's face paled as he finally caught on to Ryan's train of thought. "So no matter how much Castle beats up on the dragon it won't die?" When Ryan quietly nodded in agreement, Esposito grew even more determined and urgent. "We gotta get back to Times Square..."

* * *

**Don't forget, comments are the chocolate that keeps writers happy. And you don't want to see a writer who hasn't gotten her chocolate. It's not pretty. ;)**


	16. Chapter 16

Castle stood at the base of the steps of the TKTS building, watching the dragon fly up Broadway. He nearly drove himself crazy as he tried, in those few desperate minutes, to go over every legend he had ever heard about dragons and how to kill them. In the few precious stories his mind could come up with, there were only a couple of times where the dragon actually died, and in each one a sword or some other pointy object was used to bring the beast down. Castle had no such pointy object, and knew he wouldn't be any good with one if he had use of it.

"Think, Rick, *think*," Castle told himself. "Fire's not going to work, it's a freaking fire-*breathing* dragon. So what can you use to go after this thing?"

All analysis stopped as the dragon made his first pass. Castle dove out of the way of the fire raining down upon him, just barely getting his shield up in enough time to avoid getting singed. He threw an energy ball at the beast as it flew up Seventh Avenue to turn around...and it was at that moment that Castle realized what he needed to do.

Right when his energy ball hit the tail of the great flying beast...and it twitched.

Castle doubled up on his shielding, willing himself to gather up as much power as he could from the air, the water, the earth beneath his feet...anything that could be taken for his cause. The few remaining working LED screens in Times Square blinked out and died as Castle pulled their energy into the reserves he was already building up.

His one chance came all too quickly as the dragon completed its turn and bore down on Castle with the speed of an out-of-control freight train. But this time, the wizard was ready. Castle gathered up all of his reserves and fired, pouring as much power as he could into two beams of white-hot energy.

The dragon reared up immediately, twitching and convulsing under the overwhelming electrical overload to its nervous system. The speed the beast had built up in its descent, though, sent its limp, useless body barreling down to Earth with the power of a comet. It crashed into the street on the eastern side of the square, sending debris flying for blocks around.

Beckett stood at 49th and Broadway, watching the dragon finally come to a stop just outside of the TV studios. She scanned Times Square for any sign of her partner, finding him just a couple of blocks away...collapsed on the ground, inches away from the debris trail left in the dragon's wake. Beckett sprinted the distance in a matter of seconds, her concern for Castle evident. "Castle!"

Castle groaned as his partner helped him back up to a standing position. The exhaustion was clear in his voice as he strained to get out a simple question. "Did I get him?"

Beckett took another look at the dragon's resting place...and the trail of damage left in its wake. "Yeah, Castle. You got him."

"Score one for the all-powerful wizard," Castle joked weakly. His attention focused quickly on his desire to keep himself standing, though, when his knees started to give way underneath him. "Whoa..." he exclaimed, "guess I used more juice in that blast than I thought."

"I'm just glad you're okay," said Beckett. "What happened?"

"Dragons are fire-breathers," Castle replied, "so since I couldn't hurl fire at it, the next most powerful thing I could come up with was lightning. Takes a lot of energy to replicate a lighting bolt...1.21 gigawatts, to be exact..."

While Beckett finally let herself relax and laugh a little in response to Castle's good humor, Ryan and Esposito jogged over to join their friends after their own victory on the Park Avenue. Esposito let out a low whistle as he examined the body of the dragon that lay next to them. "Not bad, Beckett. Not bad at all..."

"Well," she joked, tilting a teasing nod to her partner, "I did the best I could with what I had available to me."

Castle did his best to look insulted. "Hey! I thought *I* did pretty good back there..."

The dragon roared in response, a pain-filled cry that begged for someone to put the beast out of its misery. Ryan responded immediately, running right up the spine of the beast and sending his sword through the top of the dragon's head in the same manner as he had done at the MetLife building. The dragon let out one more strangled groan and finally breathed his last.

Castle was dumbfounded. "How could that thing have possibly survived a crash like that?"

"You already forgot what Alexis told you, didn't you?" Ryan countered. "According to the legend, the wizard has *no* power over life and death."

"So no matter what I throw at something, I can't kill it on my own?" asked Castle. When Ryan nodded, Castle's response was blunt. "And you left me *alone* with that thing?"

Ryan could only blush. "Oops?"

Esposito quickly put two and two together. "Hold up here, guys. If the dragon did...all of this and *survived*, then it had to be *Castle* who brought down the big guy, not..."

A booming call cut off any chance Beckett would have had to answer. "Sìfāng!"

The group looked up to find the source of the voice. "It's him," stated Beckett matter-of-factly. "He's still up there."

"Is he any better?" asked Esposito. Beckett shook her head.

"Sìfāng!" Lóng zhǔ called out to the group again. His voice was badly strained, sounding weak even as it was still violently loud and angrily defiant. "You may think...to have bested me...but I swear...by the gods...I will destroy you...yet this day."

Esposito looked around, briefly surprised by the instant change in his location and in the location and behavior of his friends. _Castle must have blinked us up here..._His friends were surrounding the body of Lóng zhǔ, which was convulsing in some sort of violent seizure. Esposito crossed the distance quickly, wanting to join his friends and confirm that their evil adversary was, finally, history. Only when Esposito saw he was already *with* the group, though, did he realize that this couldn't be his current reality. It was a glimpse into their near future.

Soon it was as if everything started happening in slow motion. The body of Lóng zhǔ gave one last convulsion, rising up from the ground as it was torn open by an explosion of pure blue-white energy. His friends all tried to run, but the energy moved with a speed that not even Castle could outwit. Castle shoved Beckett to the ground, instinctively trying to protect his partner by covering her body with his own. Esposito tried to do the same for his own partner.

Their efforts were futile. A split second later Esposito was watching from above, helplessly horrified, as his family, his friends, his city...everything he had ever loved or known, perished in the massive fireball that consumed the entire island of Manhattan all at once...

Ryan watched his partner with great concern. _After everything that's happened today, _he thought, _*now* Javi's screaming?_

Esposito shook his head, blinking his eyes repeatedly to separate reality from what he had just seen. Finally he realized where he was, *when* he was, and what he needed to do. Esposito first turned his attention to his wizard, pushing Castle with life-or-death urgency. "Castle, we gotta get up there...and we gotta do it *now*!"

In less than the span of a heartbeat, the group found themselves on the roof of One Times Square. When Esposito saw the dead wizard's body sparking with light and convulsing with the need for release, the warrior knew there was no time to waste. "Castle! Shield the body!"

Castle projected a sphere of shield energy around the body of Lóng zhǔ. The bubble lifted the twitching, sparking corpse up over the city, like watching the New Year's Eve ball drop in reverse...until finally it imploded in a blinding, but fully contained ball of light.

Everyone seemed to want to look to Esposito for an explanation. After a few tense moments, the detective finally admitted, "Just before I started pushing Castle around down there, I had a vision of that corpse taking out all of Manhattan in the explosion. If Castle hadn't gotten that shield off in time, we'd all be dead."

* * *

Ryan gazed in awe at the smoking mess of devastation around them. "My God," he whistled, "how the hell are we going to explain *this*? It kinda looks like the bomb went off anyway..."

"I think I might have an idea," replied Castle. His voice started to rumble with a depth of power that Ryan and Esposito had never heard from their friend. "Repair that we have damaged, return the world to its balance and shield us from those who might wish us to be harmed."

The group felt the ripple of energy flow out of Castle as he collapsed once again on the roof. While Ryan and Beckett focused their attention on their friend, Esposito looked out at the scene below him.

It was...normal. Unscarred. Exactly as it had been that morning. Esposito turned back to his friend in amazement. Castle, for his part, simply shrugged it off. "It's a lot harder to think that the world is ending if you can look around you and all you see is that the world hasn't *actually* ended."

When a ripple of energy seemed to answer Castle's from downtown, though, Esposito's face grew pale. "Lanie! No, God no..." He turned back to Castle, the desperation evident in his voice. "Castle, we need to get to Lanie *now*." Trusting implicitly in the urgent tone in his friend's voice, Castle took a deep breath, and with great effort, gathered his will to track down their absent friend.

The group landed in the lobby of medical examiner's office. Esposito ran into the morgue in a panic, only to see his worst fears realized. He picked Lanie up from the spot where she had collapsed, cradling her head in his lap. Caressing her cheek with his hand, Esposito relaxed slightly when he realized that Lanie was still breathing. Still, he also knew that she was just not *there*. Esposito looked up to his partner, hoping that in all of this craziness he could get just one more miracle...

Ryan bent down to get on his friends' level, entering Lanie's mind as soon as he saw her. He kept up a steady stream of thought projections, hoping that it would give her something to latch on to. _Lanie, we're here. It's over. You can come back now...Javi's so worried about you..._

_K-Kevin? _

Lanie's voice echoed back into Ryan's mind through the link between them. _Lanie! _Ryan exclaimed, _Are you okay?_

_What happened? _Lanie's voice sounded weak and disoriented.

Ryan replied, _I was kind of hoping you could tell us. We felt this wave of energy come from downtown, and Esposito panicked. He dragged us down here on the last drops of Castle's magic..._

_Last drops? _Lanie's mind voice started to grow in strength even as it grew in worry. _Is he ok? What about Kate-_

_Listen, _replied Ryan, cutting her off, _I'd love to answer all your questions, but can we do that *outside* of your head?_

_You mean...?_

_Yep._

_Oh._

Lanie came back to consciousness slowly to find she was being cradled gently in the lap of her very worried boyfriend. "Hey babe," she greeted Esposito with a warm smile, finding her voice weaker than she thought it would be. "Is everybody ok?"

Esposito nodded, too grateful to have the woman he loved back to find the words to actually speak.

Ryan stood up to find that Castle and Beckett had made their way into the morgue and were leaning on each other for strength. He gently closed his connection to Lanie's mind before answering her question out loud. "We're fine, Lanie. We're *all* here."

Lanie tried to get up from where she collapsed, only to find the position too awkward to move from without assistance. "Javi, babe, help me up, please?" Esposito helped Lanie to a standing position, which allowed her mind to finally rest as she saw that all of her friends were indeed healthy and whole. "So everyone's okay?" The group nodded. "What happened?"

"We got the bad guys," Esposito replied nonchalantly. "Well, us and an army..."

It was then that Ryan realized what he had almost forgotten. Turning to his partner, he exclaimed, "Our army! The legend said we had to release them from our service..."

As if on cue, a white tiger appeared on Lanie's empty autopsy table, his eyes solely fixed on Ryan. _My lords, how may I serve you?_

"Release the army from service," Ryan told the tiger. "Quickly!"

_As you wish, my Lord, _the tiger replied, exploding into a thousand balls of white light that flew out of the morgue.

Ryan turned to find Lanie staring at him and Esposito like the tiger was their brand new third head. "Was that a *tiger*?" she exclaimed.

Castle started to consider their fairly public location in light of their current conversation, which was growing stranger by the minute. "Maybe we should take this discussion someplace more private...like my loft?"

The second everyone agreed, they vanished, and Dr. Sidney Perlmutter walked into a morgue devoid of any trace of the living. _I could have sworn I heard Dr. Parrish and her band of misfits from the 12th in here just a second ago, _thought Perlmutter. _Perhaps I've been working down here just a little too long...nah..._

* * *

The group recovered from their instant change in orientation quickly, their unconventional mode of transportation starting to feel more and more normal. Castle invited everyone to take a seat before Lanie picked up where they had left off in the morgue. "Okay, guys, y'all definitely looked at the tiger like that wasn't the first time one had just popped up in front of you. So what was all that about?"

Ryan and Esposito looked to each other as if to try to figure out who was going to explain *this* one. "You remember those guys in the bathrooms at that attack on the diner?" asked Ryan. When Lanie nodded, Ryan simply added, "They were zombies."

Lanie's eyes widened. "Zombies?" When Ryan nodded, Lanie asked, "How many of them were there?"

"No idea," replied Esposito casually. "a thousand, at least."

"Wow," exclaimed Lanie. "So how'd you get away from them?"

Esposito replied casually, "Oh, we didn't get away from them." Then, finally allowing himself a wickedly pride-filled grin, he high-fived Ryan as he declared, "we kicked their asses." Ryan and Esposito went on to describe the encounter with the tiger and the formation of the Macy's army.

"They were incredible," commented Ryan at the end. "Every one of them had our fighting abilities. Sure, the two of us couldn't take those guys on by ourselves, but a hundred of us? It actually didn't take all that long."

"And the white tiger in the morgue?" asked Lanie. "What was that about?"

"I remembered that passage from the legend," replied Ryan, "about the warrior priest being the only one who can release the army from their service. Castle restored order and got us to you so quickly that I hadn't had time..."

Lanie interrupted Ryan, "Hold up, what's he talking about? Why did Castle need to restore order?"

Everyone filled in the details, sharing their own stories of their battles with Lóng zhǔ and his dragons. Esposito picked up on the story at the point where the wizard died. "When it was over, Times Square was literally toast. It looked like the wreckage of a plane crash. Castle got us out of there before anyone could think to ask if we had anything to do with it..."

"...and?" Lanie, asked, knowing there was more to the story.

"And then he brought it all back to normal."

Lanie tried to backtrack the timing of what she had been hearing from Ryan and Esposito. She gasped as a realization hit her. Turning to Castle, she asked him, "Exactly what did you say to put everything back to normal?"

Confused, Castle replied, "Repair that we have damaged, return the world to its balance and shield us from those who might wish us to be harmed."

Lanie put two and two together, sinking back into the couch with an expression of contemplative surprise on her face. "Huh." Turning to Castle, Lanie then declared, "I think you owe me a beer, Castle."

"Really?" asked Castle, caught off guard by Lanie's comment. "Why do you say that?"

"Right around the same time you were saying that spell, Castle, I felt like someone had punched me in the gut...just before I collapsed. I woke up when Ryan pulled me out of it. I think your spell knocked some sort of healing blast out of me."

Curious, Esposito grabbed his girlfriend's hand, trying to see what she had gone through. When his eyes opened, Esposito was trying and failing to give Castle the benefit of the doubt. "Bro, if you don't choose your words a little more carefully next time..."

"What did you see?" asked Beckett.

"That energy wave that we felt from downtown? That was Lanie healing everyone injured in the battle *in one shot*." Turning to Castle, Esposito added, "And it was caused by *your spell*."

Every ounce of color drained from Castle's face as shame and guilt filled his soul. "God, Lanie, I'm so sorry, I had no idea..."

Lanie, for her part, stopped Esposito's angry thought process with a hard punch in the arm. Turning to Castle, Lanie's tone quickly turned gentle. "Baby, it's totally okay. I only ended up knocked unconscious..." Ryan wordlessly nodded his confirmation..."so I probably would have woken up eventually. We're all still trying to get the hang of this stuff, so my boyfriend here needs to *cut* *you* some *slack*."

Ryan, for his part, was starting to get a headache from the waves of tension he was feeling from his partner...which motivated him to quickly change the subject. "I've been wondering about a couple of things, Castle."

"What's on your mind, Ryan?"

"Well...the first thing was when Lóng zhǔ died in Times Square. The legend said the wizard has no power over life and death...but you were the only one who fought him. So how'd you kill him?"

"That had me stumped for a while, too," replied Castle, "until I remembered something. Lóng zhǔ, in Chinese, means Dragon Master."

Ryan nodded. "The dragons were his 'children', or so he told us."

"Yes," agreed Castle, "but I think it was more than that. I think the dragons were parts of his soul. So when you guys killed the dragons..."

"We killed *him*," Ryan completed the thought, catching on quickly. "Okay, I get that now. But there's still one other thing that's bugging me. You can't change anyone's memories of what they saw, right?"

Castle nodded. "That would influence free will."

"Then how can we be *sure* we're safe?" asked Ryan. "That people didn't *see* something...or God forbid, recognize you throwing around lightning bolts in the middle of Times Square?"

Castle considered the question carefully, weighing the possibility of someone putting two and two together against the results of his previous spells. "There's an easy way for us to find out. The early newscast is just starting, so why don't we turn the TV on and see what they're saying about it?"

The group agreed, and Castle turned on the TV to find...nothing. There was not a single mention of Times Square, Park Avenue, the MetLife building, the diner attack, the apartment building, or the deaths of the Chos. There wasn't even a mention of Macy's that wasn't during a commercial break. When Castle finally turned off the news, Ryan was dumbstruck. "Wow," Ryan exclaimed, "so things are just going to go back to normal?"

"For the rest of the world, anyway," commented Lanie. "You'd be surprised at the mechanisms the mind can come up with to rationalize away something it doesn't understand. And with Castle's spell thankfully providing them no evidence that anything out of the ordinary happened, people probably just figured it was a movie shoot."

"Or a hallucination," Ryan added, catching the concept.

"I'll bet some people decided to quit drinking," commented Beckett.

"Or start drinking..." Esposito continued with a small chuckle.

Esposito's comment inspired Castle. "That gives me an idea..." Jumping up from the couch, he ran to the kitchen, getting a bottle of champagne and five champagne flutes. "I have been saving this bottle for a special occasion." Handing out the flutes, he opened the champagne with a loud *pop* and poured five glasses. "Personally, I think stopping the zombie apocalypse qualifies as a special occasion...?"

"I'd say so, bro," replied Esposito. "And sorry about earlier, man..."

Castle waived off the apology, "I totally understand. If we had been talking about Kate I would have been just as bad..."

"Or worse," added Beckett with a laugh.

Castle pulled everyone together in a toast. "To the fantastic five, who have just saved the world from turning into mindless zombies...oh, wait..." As everyone allowed themselves a small chuckle at Castle's even smaller joke, his tone turned more genuine and sincere. "May life never give us more that we can handle...even with superpowers."

The group clinked their glasses and drank. Ryan noticed how the two couples were starting to comfort each other after their long day, and his heart ached for the woman he wanted at his side at that moment. "Guys," he announced, "I should probably get home. After everything that's happened today, I really want to see my wife."

Castle gave a tiny nod of understanding, then remembered a conversation he had with Ryan in the Hamptons. "So, out of curiosity, what did you end up telling her about...all this?"

"I, uh...I haven't told her anything. And after today, I have *no* idea what I'm going to tell her..."

"You know you have to tell her *everything*, right?" asked Beckett. When Ryan hesitated, Beckett continued, "Ryan, what are you going to say the first time you blurt out an answer to something she's thinking? If I've learned anything over this past year, it's that keeping secrets is the most toxic thing you can do in a relationship. And we all know how much you love your wife. This is part of who you are now...who we all are. You *need* to tell her."

While Ryan's head was trying to come up with any possible excuse to not have this conversation, in his heart, he knew that Beckett was right. "Okay," he agreed with a loud sigh of surrender, "I'll tell her."

"Uh, bro?" Ryan had turned to leave, but was stopped by Esposito, who was also grabbing his coat. He tried stop his partner, but to no avail. "Ryan, you're my partner," insisted Esposito. "And if I've learned anything from that crazy legend, it's that these powers or whatever you want to call them have now pretty much made us brothers for life. Which means I can't lie to Jenny either."

If Ryan was moved by Esposito's show of support, then he was outright floored to find that the rest of the group were gathering their coats as well. Lanie spoke for Castle and Beckett. "Hey, it's all for one and one for all, right? Besides, the way you two ladies talk, if she knows about you then she'll find out about the rest of us eventually. Might as well get this over with..."

**Longer than normal chapter, but there's only one more left. :-) And that one should be finished tonight or tomorrow (Jenny seems to have an awful lot of questions for her hubby ;-), and she refuses to let me finish the story until she gets all of them answered.) Don't forget to feed (send comments to) the writer!**


	17. Chapter 17

Ryan let his friends into the apartment, his hands shaking so hard that Castle had to be the one to shut the door. Castle placed a hand on the younger man's shoulder to try and reassure him. "It'll be okay, Ryan."

Ryan drew in a deep breath, letting it out slowly in an attempt to steady his nerves and build up his courage. Turning to his friends, he asked them, "Are you all sure about this? I can just make this about me..."

"Not possible," Castle insisted. "I know she saw me, and unless I miss my guess, she saw Esposito, too. There's no way this can just be about you."

Esposito was in full agreement, "Bro, we need to do this, you know that. She's seen too much."

As four heads nodded around Ryan, a fifth voice chimed in so quietly that Castle had trouble hearing it. "Seen too much about what?"

The group turned around to see Jenny behind them. Ryan's heart broke as he took in his wife's pale, frail, shell-shocked appearance. She may not have fought alongside them, but Ryan soon understood that his wife had definitely been wounded as a result of the battle. He just hoped this conversation would be helpful for her. Ryan approached her gently, opening his mind to her thoughts and emotions.

Jenny recognized the odd sensation in her mind and recoiled from it almost instantly. "I...I...I remember th-that feeling. From Times Square." She expected the mention of that place to cause confusion; but when her husband and his friends responded with sympathy instead, Jenny was even *more* confused. "All...all afternoon I thought I was going crazy. I was in Times Square, and I saw these...things. They were fighting you, Kevin, and Javier, too. It was like some giant fight scene in a martial arts movie..." She then let out a nervous chuckle as she added, "It even had the badly dubbed dialogue. Then a billboard almost fell on my head...but *you* got me out of the way before it broke apart...into confetti, of all things. Then you, Kevin, had these three guys with these weird orange eyes get me out of there and escort me home." Jenny's lower lip started to quiver as she was doing everything she could to hold back tears. "I've been trying to figure out if I had been dreaming, or hallucinating, or sick, or drugged...I don't know, a thousand things must've through my head. But now, with this...I must *really* be losing my mind..."

Ryan shut down the mind link immediately, instead pouring his energy into soothing his wife's fragile emotional state. When she seemed to calm down, Ryan began to tell their story...as carefully as he could. "Jen, sweetheart...I promise you're not losing your mind. Although, I can't promise you won't feel the same after you hear the whole story," he chuckled nervously. "Remember that nasty thunderstorm Thursday night?" At Jenny's nod, Ryan continued, "Well, when we were at the loft for poker night, something...happened. As far as we can tell, the apartment was struck by lightning."

Jenny's overriding concern for others above herself kicked in almost immediately. "But...but everyone's okay, right?"

Ryan knew he was getting to the part that would be hardest for his wife to hear. Taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly to steady his own nerves, he continued, "Okay, in this case, may be a relative term. We were all knocked unconscious, and when we woke up, we were...different."

The fear started to creep back into Jenny's voice. "D-different...how?"

_Here we go..._Ryan thought to himself. Focusing on his wife, Ryan then communicated to her, _Honey, when I woke up I discovered I had the ability to read people's thoughts and project my thoughts into their heads. That's why you could hear me so clearly in Times Square even when my lips weren't moving._

Jenny shook her head slightly, watching her husband's motionless face in disbelief. "N-nice trick," she stammered defensively, "I didn't know you knew how to throw your voice."

"He wasn't throwing his voice, Jenny," declared Castle solemnly. "Whatever he told you, you alone heard it. None of us heard any of it."

Jenny's face blanched with shock as the rest of the group nodded their heads in agreement. She jumped up from the couch and started to back away from the living room. "There's no wwway...this is...this is impossible. You couldn't..."

"Jenny!" Ryan was up in a flash as he watched his wife collapse on the floor. Esposito helped his partner get his wife to the couch, then stepped back as Lanie took his place, taking Jenny's hand and slipping into a diagnostic trance.

It was only a matter of a few tense seconds before Lanie mentally returned to the group, her face softening as her eyes opened. "Kevin, you can relax. She's fine, she just fainted, the baby's fine..."

Kevin looked, for his part, started to look like *he* was about to faint. Collapsing into the chair, he gasped out "B-baby? She's pregnant?"

A groan from the couch sent Ryan back to his feet immediately. Launching himself to his wife's side, he helped her up gently to a seated position. "Honey?"

Jenny saw how the entire group was looking at her with concern...with the exception of her husband, who seemed to have a thousand different emotions playing across his face all at once. Then she remembered the last thing that happened before she fainted. "Th-That was you? In my *head*?"

"Yeah," replied Ryan shyly. "We were all affected differently."

"Like h-how?" asked Jenny, still shaking in disbelief.

Lanie decided to go first. "I guess you could call me a psychic healer. When I touch someone, I can tell what's going on in their body and heal any injury or illness almost instantly."

"So when I fainted..." _She couldn't know, could she?_

Ryan nodded in agreement to Jenny's unspoken question. "Sweetheart, why didn't you just tell me?"

"I was looking for the right moment," replied Jenny with a weary sign, "but then you got really busy at work and then this weekend happened and I wasn't sure if I could trust you anymore..." _and a psychic healer just told my now-telepathic husband I was pregnant..._"and Don't. Change. The subject. All of this *still* doesn't explain the way I saw you fight I saw in Times Square." Jenny then turned to her husband, joking, "Wait, don't tell me...one of these superpowers you've been given is 'mad crazy ninja skills'."

Ryan answered with a chuckle that was far more nervous than his wife was expecting. "Well that's probably not how I would have worded it, but...yeah."

Jenny's eyes widened, and she turned to the other person she saw in the fight. "Javi, you too?" Esposito nodded. "So who were the other guys?"

"Our backup," replied Esposito simply.

When his partner gave no further information, Ryan added, "When we get into an overwhelmingly bad situation, we have the option to call for an army to back us up. Those were the other guys you saw in the fight."

"And everyone in this army can...fight like you guys?" Ryan nodded. Jenny pushed further, shuddering at the memory it brought to the front of her mind. "What were those...things you were fighting?"

Ryan winced, knowing how crazy his next statement was about to sound. "Would you believe me if I told you they were zombies?"

Jenny thought it over for a moment and realized it made an odd degree of sense...under the circumstances. "Actually, I would believe that." Her thoughts then turned to the one person who *wasn't* fighting when she saw him. "Mr. Castle..."

Castle cut her off, "You know you can call me Rick, Jenny."

"Okay..." Jenny agreed, hesitating slightly, "Rick, when I saw that big fight in Times Square, *you* were standing in the middle of the fight and not fighting. And..." Jenny gasped as she started to put more of the pieces together. "And when that billboard turned to confetti, Kevin acknowledged *you*, like you had something to do with it. Did you?"

Castle nodded. He held out his hand as if to let Jenny shake it, then made a white rosebud appear in that hand before she could. "Richard Castle, wizard, at your service, my lady."

Jenny took the rose from Castle's hand. As she breathed in its delicate scent, Jenny was tempted to blow it off as simply a 'nice magic trick'...until Castle waved his hand over the flower, causing it to bloom fully while she was holding it. Jenny's eyes widened again as more puzzle pieces fit together in her mind. "You...*you* turned that billboard to confetti?" Castle nodded.

Jenny was fighting hard to wrap her head around these increasingly amazing revelations. "So when you guys went to the Hamptons, it wasn't to watch the Yankee game, it was to try and figure out what was happening to you?" The group nodded, which brought Jenny to her last question. "Who's Alexis?"

"My daughter," chimed in Castle. "She was there when we arrived and kinda got roped into helping us out. She's the only one who knows about this outside of the people in this room."

"So why did you call her the minute you got back?"

"My mind had...overloaded," Ryan replied. "I underestimated how hard it would be dealing with being back in the city. By the time I walked home from Castle's place my controls were shot to hell. Alexis talked me through getting those controls back." It was then that Ryan started to wonder why the conversation had taken the turn it had. "Wait a second, I've never mentioned Alexis to you..."

Jenny started to blush furiously. "I, uh...I might have overheard the start of your conversation with her when you got home on Sunday."

Ryan had a feeling their was *definitely* more to Jenny's story. "And...?"

"When you didn't mention her to me," Jenny replied, "and you didn't tell me *anything* about how the weekend had gone, I...I started wondering if you and she were having an affair. I was in Times Square to meet with a private investigator to have you followed."

Ryan nearly choked on the word. "An *affair*?! Jenny, what made you think I possibly could...?"

"I wasn't thinking clearly, okay!" exclaimed Jenny.

It took every bone of compassion in Richard Castle's body for him to not burst out laughing. Even still, he clamped his hand over his mouth to make sure the errant chuckle did *not* come out and make the situation worse. His eyes were starting to tear up from the strain of trying so hard *not* to laugh, though...which made his opinion of the situation clear to all.

Jenny blushed as she watched Castle's failed attempts to hold back his laughter. "I take it I couldn't be more off base with what I was thinking?"

Ryan's response was compassionate, but immediate. "Sorry honey, but Alexis is barely out of high school..."

As Jenny finally started to relax, Esposito's reality shifted away from the present.

He saw a version of his partner from what looked to be about five years in their future, trying to corral a very active three year old boy. "JJ," Ryan called out in exasperation, "Mommy and Lexie are waiting downstairs. We've gotta go to our new home now."

The blond haired little boy seemed determined not to go. "Kitty come wif us, right?"

It was then that Esposito noticed Ryan's white tiger spirit prowling near the kitchen. As Ryan scooped the toddler up in his arms, he looked straight at the tiger and smiled. "JJ, I promise you, if you don't see him in the car, Kitty will meet us there."

_Promise?_ Asked the little boy in his mind.

_I promise._ Ryan replied with a smile, letting JJ tap his forehead against his father's.

As Ryan carried his son out of the apartment, the white tiger let out a majestic roar of approval behind him.

* * *

**Well, that's it! Thanks to everyone who stuck with this story. I've been so blessed and humbled by all the wonderful comments I've received so far. Of course, that doesn't mean I wouldn't like more. ;-)**

**For those of you who are new to the Four Winds universe, I hope you've liked this journey off the beaten path of most Castle fan fiction. ****_Four Winds_**** is the start of an ongoing series of stories. If you click on my author page you'll find the other two stories:**

_**Four Winds: On the Job Training**_

_**Four Winds: Guardians of Shangri La**_

**And a quickie one-shot called ****_Four Winds: Dreams of a Wizard_**

**Feel free to read, enjoy and leave lots of comments!**

**And for all you wonderful die-hard fans who have stuck with this story through thick and thin: my next project will be to edit the first four chapters of ****_Four Winds: The Edge of Heaven_**** and finish the last two chapters of that story. That will start tomorrow ;).**


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